Published in Discovery magazine

The Madness and the Magic

Visiting Madagascar is as close as you'll get to being on another planet. Almost every animal found there lives nowhere else on earth. And the people are just as unique, with complicated beliefs and taboos.

Story: Keri Harvey

He stands still and listens intently, his eyes closed and his head cocked. Then his hands start to move rhythmically to and fro, as if conducting an unseen forest choir. The choir sounds like a mixture of whale-song and screeching sirens, at times so haunting it sends shivers down your spine.

"Ah, that is the territorial cry of the indri," says Maurice Ratsisakanana, as he continues to 'conduct' the unseen choir and quietly imitates their sound at the same time. "They are not far away, maybe just a half an hour walk through the forest," he whispers. The morning temperature is rising in the dense, dry forest, so we set off at a steady pace in search of these singing lemurs - three humans walking in silence and single file along one of a myriad of well-trodden forest paths. "Don't worry," says Maurice, "in all the years I have never been lost in the forest. I know all these paths and I also know where the chameleons and giraffes live." By 'giraffes' Maurice means giraffe beetles, which are unusual contraptions with red beetle bodies and long, jointed 'necks'. Just one of the many quirky species on Madagascar

We are in Perinet Indri Reserve, part of Parc National d' Andasibe-Mantadia, just east of Antananarivo. Tana, as it is affectionately called by locals, is the starting point for all travellers to Madagascar. The sprawling capital looks like a child's Lego construction in earth tones. Quaint buildings stack tightly against the many hillsides and appear to have risen out of the ground. The land lower down is awash with rice paddies, and in between traffic meshes through the narrow streets in a tangle of cars and cow-drawn carts. There are no high-rise buildings and no neon signs to distract from the raw, rural quaintness of the city.

From Tana it's a four-hour dizzy drive through the hills to Perinet, considered the most accessible and popular of Madagascar's 50 plus reserves. Its montane forest protects about 250 indris, the biggest and possibly the most unusual of all the lemurs. Indris stand about three foot tall and have the appearance of startled, piebald teddy-bears. With their powerful legs, these endearing animals launch themselves off tree trunks high in the forest canopy, execute turns in mid air, and land face forward on a tree up to 10 metres away.

While most lemurs grunt and snort, indris sing to communicate. Like clockwork, an hour or two after dawn the indris start feeding in the treetops and singing their eerie territorial song to other troops kilometres away. This is also the best time to see these lemurs, as they fling themselves from tree to tree through the forest like well-trained trapeze artists. By noon the indris are fast asleep in the treetops, curled up in tight furry balls. Then the forest is quiet until sunset, when the indri choir again resumes its song.

As we follow Maurice through the rainforest, we can't help but wonder what unusual creature would cross our path next. And we are not disappointed. "There's 'Mr Parson'," says Maurice, pointing at a green tree trunk. "Do you see him resting in the shade, quite still?" Dressed in a flashy coat of lime green was an enormous Parson's chameleon, doing the statue pose. Parson's chameleons grow up to two foot long and weigh over two kilograms, which is quite a lot of chameleon in one piece. On the opposite side of the scale is the diminutive stump-tailed chameleon at just 3cm long.

With such an array of unusual creatures, it's difficult to find a comfortable box and label for Madagascar. Just when you think you have it all figured out, you see something that completely blows your theory. With over 450 different frogs, huge moths and chameleons in every size and colour, you feel convinced Madagascar is a close cousin of South America. Then the dozens of lemur species are reminiscent of African bushbabies, but then something else smacks of relations with Asia. And when you see an aye-aye - a scruffy-haired lemur with big ears and a bony middle finger for hooking out grubs from under bark - you are convinced that Madagascar is an island lost in time, adrift on the Indian Ocean for millions of years, since it broke away from Gondwanaland.

Man only arrived on the island 2 000 years ago, but in that time dozens of species have been lost to extinction. Most were lemurs, some as big as gorillas. Others include the elephant bird that stood roof high, the dwarf hippo and tortoises larger than any we know now. Yet even though so many species have disappeared, three quarters of all the living things on the island are still found nowhere else on earth. So many of Madagascar's creatures are still a complete enigma and plenty of new species are still discovered every year.

"You know the indri is our original ancestor," says Maurice, as we stand looking up at a family of indris looking down on us - and try to fathom this unusual evolution theory. "That's why it is fady (taboo) to kill an indri - and all other lemurs too." Though many lemur species are under threat because of habitat destruction through slash and burn practices for subsistence farming and charcoal production, the quirky mammals are never hunted or eaten by the Malagasy. It would offend the ancestors, and the world of the dead rules the world of the living.

The ancestors - who have roots in Africa and Indonesia - are revered through a complicated system of fady, which permeates daily life in Madagascar. In some areas it's fady to hand an egg directly to someone, without first putting it on the ground. In other areas it's fady to work in the rice fields on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or to herd cattle on Mondays. On the flipside, Wednesdays are especially good for funerals and bone turning ceremonies, and any work done on Sundays will be blessed - because it's God's day.

With the Malagasy belief that death is a far more important state than is life, tombs are built more solidly and at greater expense than homes, and the dead are consulted on all important matters. In the central highlands, around Antananarivo, famadihana or bone turning ceremonies are a regular practice in winter. During this ceremony the corpse is wrapped in a fresh shroud, 'shown' new developments and consulted on projects and problems. After two days of festivity, the corpse is placed back in the tomb to rest until next time. And the family starts saving again to honour another ancestor by 'turning their bones'.

As late afternoon turns to dusk, the indris are again tuning up for their evening choir session - and we are heading out to see the creatures of the night. "Just look for shining eyes," says Maurice as he walks at full tilt along the edge of the forest, shining his torch deep into the trees. Nocturnal lemurs are identified by the colour of their eyeshine, and Maurice knows them all. "Brown mouse lemur," he calls. Then a few minutes later: "greater dwarf lemur " and a night jar." And so it goes for an hour, until Maurice can no longer ignore the raucous clicking of hundreds of tree frogs and starts clicking back at them. Maurice is a master of forest banter.

"There he is, sitting right on top of that branch," says Maurice, as he points animatedly to a tiny tree frog squatting on a bowing fern frond. "Isn't he beautiful," remarks Maurice, as if seeing his first tree frog ever. "If you think they are making a noise now, you should hear these frogs when it rains. They really love rain." The clicks and coos of the tree frogs continue long after dark, and it seems all the while that they are taking over from the indris, doing the choir night shift.

As we walk through the forest, looking for more nocturnal lemurs, we are reminded of a world long ago. There is a primeval air and it's easy to imagine the leaf-strewn damp forest floor writhing with brightly-coloured snakes, frogs, geckos and chameleons, as the indris make music by day and the tree frogs by night.