Rongony culture/language/rongony.md
*Rongony* is the Malagasy word for cannabis. Dictionaries give it asIt names the name of the plant, especially when grown for its fibre, and of the leaves and flowers that are smoked. It is; Malagasy dictionaries give it as the general word, and the island's own laws used: it from 1915 tountil 1997 the offence on [Madagascar](/country/mg/) was the use of *chanvre indien dit rongony*, "Indian hemp called rongony".[@1,2,3,417]
WhereIts history runs through textile work, proverbs, the word comes from is not settled inMerina monarchy's attempts to control smoking, and the sources read hereFrench colony's decision to write *rongony* into law. What can be traced isThe sources do not establish a single origin: the range of thingsmost specific proposal connects it namesto *rongo*, its older neighboursa term for woven cloth and textile fibre, but that derivation is offered by a botanical dictionary rather than demonstrated. The vocabulary was regional, and how each government in turn wrote it intoonly some names entered the lawstatute book.[@3,4]
## Fibre, remedycloth and smokethe root rongo
The Malagasy dictionaries collected by [Malagasy Word]*Dictionnaire des noms malgaches de végétaux* (https://malagasyword.org/bins/teny2/rongony1999) definelabels *rongony* as a plant withMerina and Betsileo word and derives it from *rongo*: "ce que l'on tisse; les fibres that can betextiles", what is woven, whose seeds some people smoke; thetextile fibres.[@3] *Dictionnaire des noms malgaches de végétauxRongo* says itcan mean textile fibre; a Sakalava sense may be a fibre-bearing tree.[@4] The link is "plausible, but the name givenentry gives no older form, sound change or cognate to prove it: the plant cultivated asbest etymology found, not a textile"settled one. The[@3,4]
Fibre use is documented. Chris Duvall writes that late nineteenth-century Malagasy–English dictionary translates it simply as "the people made hemp plant"fabric and had an extensive vocabulary for fibre processing, the Malagasy–French one asand that *chanvrerongony* named both the plant generally and plants grown for fibre.[@35] The [dictionaries agree; Malagasy Wiktionary](https://mg.wiktionary.org/wiki/rongony) adds a remedy for a disease of pigs, and an example sentence that warns smoking rongony makes a person foolish and wildthe name was also given to other weaving plants.[@2,3]
The same plant had other namesfibre entered the proverb tradition. *Maosy* and *katrinia* are given for itManan-karena salasala, and the English Wiktionary lists ka manao kitamby rongony*jamala* and *daina* — "neither rich nor poor: one wears a hemp wrap" — was explained by Houlder as synonymsa reference to hemp cloth marking the middle condition.[@27,38,19] The geographer Chris Duvall,Another compares people who traced cannabis across Africawait to stink before joining together to hemp in retting, counts a varied historical vocabulary on the island and findssoaking that separates the fibres: *ahetsmanga*Aza mantsim-bao miray, hoatry ny rongony.*jamala*[@7, *jía* and *soróma*8]
## The plant and its many names
Other names were regional.[@53,10,11,12]
| Name | Recorded in | What the sources sayit names |
|---|---|---|
| rongony | The usual nameMerina and Betsileo; the fibregeneral word | the plant and, especially grown for fibre; also the drug |
| jamalaangafo | Recorded by Robert Drury for western Madagascar in 1729;Merina | the likely source of Réunion's [smoked tops; *zamalmanangafo*](/culture/language/zamal/), to smoke hemp |
| maosyjiajia | Sakalava and Tankarana | young leaves and tops; Anjiajia, katrinia"where there is hashish" |
Other names for the plant | jamala | dainaBara, Tanosy, Betsimisaraka and Taisaka | Listedcannabis and its smoked tops; also impatience |
*Maosy* is a Betsimisaraka familiar name for the tops; *katrinia* is leaves and seeds mixed with sugar and smoked.[@13,14]
These names were not interchangeable: *rongony* named the fibre plant, while *angafo* and *jiajia* named the parts prepared as a synonym |
| drug. But *rongony* was also the general and legal word, which is why the 1915 decree could prohibit "chanvre à fumer dit Rongony" without naming *angafo*.[@3,15]
Duvall adds older names — *ahetsmanga*, *jía*, *soróma | Historical names Duvall singles out |
## How long it has been grown
* — whose distribution suggests links with the African mainland; he keeps them distinct from *rongony*.[@5] The plant drug iswas first described on the islanddocumented in [Étienne de Flacourt's history of 1661](/history/madagascar-flacourt-first-documentation-1661/), and Duvall points to pollen far older than any text.[@5] The name *jamalaJamala* travelled with people taken from Madagascar to work on Réunion: Jean Benoist foundRobert Drury recorded it in 1729, and Jean Benoist traced [DruryRéunion's 1729 vocabulary*zamal*](/culture/language/zamal/) to it, a journey recorded in [the history of the word](/history/reunion-zamal-malagasy-roots-1729/) and traced Réunion's word for cannabis to it.[@5,6,12]
## A word in the statute book
The kingdom of Imerinabest-known prohibition story is said to have banned smoking it while still allowing royal. *Fon' ny mpifoka rongony* — "the plant for cloth and ropeheart of a hemp smoker is cruel" — is recorded as a proverb, underand the collector's note says King [Andrianampoinimerina, conventionally in 1787](/history/madagascar-merina-ban-1787/), made smoking a capital offence, though the law was soon abandoned.[@8] The 1967 note is retrospective. Duvall dates the ban to 1870 or earlier, citing European accounts; the botanical dictionary attributes the ban and a cultivation prohibition to Prime Minister Rainilaiarivony.[@5,12] Duvall says the ban spared fibre production; the proverb note presents it as anti-smoking.[@5,8]
The French colony went furthermade the word a legal term. A [decree of 9 October 1915](/history/madagascar-colonial-rongony-ban-1915/) prohibited preparing"the preparation, sellingpeddling, sale and consumingconsumption of smoking cannabis "hemp known as rongonyRongony" throughout Madagascar and its dependencies.
Independent The title and Article 1 both used the Malagasy word; Article 2 set the penalties.[@15] The offence was smoking hemp, not hemp fibre.
Independence kept the word. In July 1960 President Philibert Tsiranana's government [raisedreplaced the penalties to as much as five yearscolonial rules with [Ordinance 60-073](/history/madagascar-rongony-penalties-raised-1960/) in an ordinance on the consumption of, "relative à la répression du trafic de chanvre /cannabis/ dit rongony". WhenIt banned cultivation and raised the maximum to five years and a 1,000,000-franc fine; the government said colonial penalties had failed.[@16]
In 1997 drug law[Law 97-039](/history/madagascar-drug-law-1997/) replaced it, prohibited "the statute switched tocultivation of the treaty languageopium poppy, "the coca bush and the cannabis plant", and itsused *cannabis* rather than *chanvre* or *rongony*.[@17] Article 148 repealed "ordinance no. 60-073 of 28 July 1960 on the repression of the consumption of Indian hemp1960 ordinance, which it called "relative à la répression de la consommation du chanvre indien dit rongony" — a law about consumption, though its title was about traffic.[@4] The word survived only in the repeal clause.
## The word today
The law no longer usesstopped saying *rongony*; people did not. The [Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime](https://globalinitiative.net/) reported in 2021 that Madagascar was the wordmost significant cannabis producer among the western Indian Ocean islands, but people dowith major production in Analabe and Betroka and exports across the Indian Ocean. Rongony[@18] In Analabe Ambanja, residents demonstrated how cannabis oil is growninhaled through a bottle.[@18]
The double meaning still shapes how the north and south ofplant is seen. A 2023 master's thesis at the island[Rhode Island School of Design](https://www.risd.edu/) argues that because hemp and marijuana are both called *rongony*, for the home market and forfibre's heritage carries the Comorosdrug's stigma; its author, MayotteHenintsoa Thierry Andrianambinina, Mauritiuscalls hemp "highly taboo" in Madagascar and traces the Seychellesassociation to colonial prohibition. A 2021 study estimated that the commune of Antsahabe alone produces at least 200 tonnes a year.[@719,20] In everyday speech the name of the fibre plantThat is alsoa designer's argument about the namepresent, not a history of the drug the laws were written againstword.
The Malagasy name for cannabis, the fibre plant and the drug alike. Colonial: a textile word that became a colonial offence and national laws named it in their titles, and it is still the everyday wordname on Madagascar.
chanvre indien dit rongony, angafo, jiajia, jamala, maosy, katrinia, daina
src ../../src/assets/culture/rongony-madagascar.jpg · alt A young cannabis plant with brig … llen leaves. · caption A young cannabis plant photographed in Madagascar in April 2025. · aspect ratio 1 · position top · credit Anai171, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · credit url https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cannabis_sativa_de_Madagascar.jpg · license url https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
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Malagasy Word — rongo (woven cloth, textile fibres) Malagasy Dictionary and Encyclopedia — proverbs containing the word rongony Le Livre de la Sagesse Malgache: Proverbes, dictons, sentences, expressions figurées et curieuses Ohabolana ou Proverbes Malgaches Malagasy Word — angafo (Merina name for the smoked tops of hemp) Malagasy Word — jiajia (Sakalava and Tankarana name for cannabis) Malagasy Word — jamala (cannabis; also impatience) Malagasy Word — maosy (familiar name for hemp tops) Malagasy Word — katrinia (hemp leaves and seeds smoked with sugar) France — Decree of 9 October 1915 prohibiting rongony, contemporary legal collection United Nations — Madagascar, Ordinance 60-073 and explanatory memorandum, E/NL.1962/8 Henintsoa Thierry Andrianambinina, Reintroducing Hemp (rongony) in the Material Palette of Madagascar (Rhode Island School of Design master's thesis, 2023) RISD Grad Show 2023 — Thierry Andrianambinina, Reintroducing Hemp in the Material Palette of Madagascar 7 unchanged