Note 856 — Chapter XIII · —Island Peoples

In a similar way Madagascar is divided between the Malayan Hovas, who occupy the eastern and central part of the island, and the African Sakalavas who border the western coast. [See map page 105.] This distribution of the ethnic elements corresponds to that of the insect life, which is more African on the western side and more Indo-Malayan on the eastern.856 Though the population shows every physical type between Negro and Malayan, and ethnic diversity still predominates over ethnic unity in this vast island, nevertheless the close intercourse of an island habitat has even in Madagascar produced unification of language. Malayan speech of an ancient form prevails everywhere, and though diversified into dialects, is everywhere so much alike that all Malagasies can manage to understand one another.857 The first inhabitants were probably African; but the wide Mozambique Current (230 miles), with its strong southward flow, was a serious barrier to fresh accessions from the mainland, especially as the nautical development of the African tribes was always low. Meanwhile, however, successive relays of sea-bred Malay-Polynesians crossed the broad stretch of the Indian Ocean, occupied the island, and finally predominated over the original Negro stock.858 Then in historic times came Arabs, Swahilis, and East Indians to infuse an Asiatic element into the population of the coasts, while Portuguese, English, Dutch, and French set up short-lived colonies on its shores. But despite this intermittent foreign immigration, the fundamental isolation of Madagascar, combined with its large area, enabled it to go its own slow historical gait, with a minimum of interference from outside, till France in 1895 began to assume control of the island.