The truth always comes out of the mouths of children. With tantara, a game of dolls without dolls, little girls are already mothers and look at the adult world with an often-penetrating gaze. Knock, knock! I am the mother! Knock, knock! I am the girl!
As a little girl, who has not played this at least once in her childhood? Find a small corner of a sidewalk, a staircase step, or a low wall and there you can start your tantara (literally means story). Draw a few lines with charcoal to mark off your playing area. Do not forget the precious pebbles (vato) which will animate the characters: the father, the mother, the children, the grandparents, etc.
The bigger the pebble, the elder the character it represents. The rule is simple: to make the pebble talk, hit it with a smaller one.
Here we go for perfectly improvised dialogues where the little girl projects her own little world, like a small open-air family theater where she plays her future role as a mother, wife, and woman.
Rather than a true ancestral heritage, tantara vato is an improvised game whose exact origin remains to be determined. However, it is thought to be an alternative game for most Malagasy children who cannot afford to play with dolls or Barbie. To replace the dollhouse, they draw a few lines on the ground and make pebbles talk.
There is no age limit to playing tantara. Who taught them this game? Nobody. They discover by observing and imitating others. Little girls may play alone or in a group, and it can quickly become very noisy! The dialogues are often rudimentary, but always very instructive for an attentive ear.
The little storyteller expresses her own experiences through the dialogue she tells. If there is alcoholism or domestic violence in her home, she is likely to bring it up in the tantara, and this is an excellent way for parents and other people to connect with her and help her. Every aspect of human life such as illness, adultery, death, abuse, can be reported in the stories. A reflection of the society in which we live in the end, is seen through the eyes of the little ones. Or, as the saying goes, the truth always comes out of the mouths of children.
Sources: Tour-Malin Madagascar, Africulture, Malagasy Students’ Union in Wuhan
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