"Blood Brother" too Queen Ranavalo.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 17 April 1914, Page 2

"Blood Brother" too Queen Ranavalo.

Marius Ca'/eneiwe, who recently : died at Toulouse, at Uio age of ; seventy-four, might have tw.>en one of i the heroes of ."Jules • Verne., Me was ja. remarkable traveller, a»id an adi venturer in the romantic -sense, seeki ing out adventures for adventure's ; sake. He had studied all the mys- : teries of the Brahmins nrnd the ancient Egyptians, and developed the 1 art. of conjuring and j.U'jjgilin-g to a. I marvellous point, though h.e never : acted as a public showman. j He took a great fancy to travel!- ---: ing in the East, and when, in 1886, Ihe heard of the dillicuMfies of the j French Resident in Madagascar, he j volunteered his services ias a "prestidigitator," in the interests of diplomacy. M. le Meyre de« Vilers, the ; then Resident, received h:hn, and a • number of seances were organised at : the Court of the Queen Ranavalo. ;So fascinated was the young queen jby his "prestidigitation," that she i gave him free access to the palace, j and appointed him her private phyI sician. Her admiration for him went so far as to propose to make him her "blood brother," according to an old rite, then still in vogue in Madagascar. Marius Cazeneuve himself describes the ceremony in a book which he wrote on the Court of Madagascar. The queen invited him to her country residence, and, in the presence of a few chosen witnesses, the ceremony was performed by a native priest, who seemed to be something of a Druid. 'With the point of a sacred thorn he drew a drop of blood from the arm, of the queen, and, having done the same to the queen's physician, he mingled the

two drops of bloon, and thenceforth a sacred tie of blood relationship was supposed to have been estab-

lished