9,573
edits
Changes
no edit summary
Most Merina houses are built of bricks and mud, sometimes even two-storeyed. Almost each village has a church, often even two: Catholic and Protestant. The Merina are rice farmers and their cuisine is so heavily dominated by rice, so that the term for eating a meal is simply "to eat rice".
Merina worship the water spirits, known as the [[Vazimba]] who inhabited the land before the arrival of humans and are believed to have a supernatural power. The Merina bury the dead in tombs. [[Famadihana]] - the ''turning of the bones'' - is a Merina custom.