The Madagascar Diviner in Robert Drury’s Narrative

Record summary

Robert Drury’s Madagascar narrative includes descriptions of local kingship, ritual specialists, omens, healing, and divination during the author’s claimed captivity and residence on the island. It is a useful lead for studying how an English captive represented Malagasy altered states and predictive practices in an early eighteenth-century setting. The narrative’s authenticity and degree of editorial shaping have long been questioned, so it should be compared with independent French, Malagasy, and later ethnographic sources. It is evidence for a text’s representation, not proof of successful prediction.