| Summary: | Religious practices and representations in Madagascar in the time of Lars Vig (missionary and ethnographer), 1875-1903. Texts and context. Starting with a study of contemporary religious practices in Madagascar’s Highlands (published in 2006), the author takes a fresh look at the Norwegian Lutheran archives compiled by L. Vig and A. Valen, missionaries in Madagascar at the end of the nineteenth century (the nms Archives in Stavanger). In them we find the oldest descriptions of religious practices and representations in the region. The aim is to grasp the phases of the “encounter” and religious conversion as shown in the archives, and the modes of “conversation” and religious production that are always found at work these days in processes of affiliation and religious practices. The work consisted of identifying both the contents of certain texts and, at the same time, the context in which they were recorded. An examination of the collection brings to light the role of the informants and gives details about the Madagascan society in which Vig moved, his working methods and his experience. This work looks at various levels of texts, from fieldwork research to articles prepared for publication. This collection can be compared with the Madagascan Tribunal Archives from the same period, more recent missionary archives and current Madagascan writings.
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