Dancing With the Dead May be Spreading the Plague in Madagascar
Madagascar’s plague outbreak has killed more than 100 people and sparked fears among officials both on the island and abroad that the deadly disease could spread.
Now officials have identified a centuries-old tradition in Madagascar that could heighten the risk of the outbreak spreading: dancing with the dead.
The local name for the practice is famadihana, but it is also known as “the turning of the bones” or “body turning.” It involves families exhuming the bones of their deceased relatives, rewrapping them with fresh cloth, and dancing with the wrapped corpses before returning the remains to their graves.