Taken from: MADAGASCAR AVANT QUE LES PORTUGAIS N’Y ARRIVENT; Manuel Alberto Carvalho Vicente.

In chapter 43 of the second book of his Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar, É. de Flacourt speaks of his arrival in Chalemboule (on the eastern coast of Madagascar) and, at that time, he affirms that all the people of this region call themselves among themselves “the Great Zafehibrahim from the name of Isle Sainte- Marie, whose name is Nossi Ibrahim, from whom they are all descended, as it were, Isle of Abraham, and they are of the line of Abraham. This is what makes me believe that they are descended from some line of Jews or Arabs, who for a long time came to take refuge in this country. Especially since they have the good day on Saturday, even if there are men, women and children here who are much whiter than around the Matatanes and Androbeisaha, and whose hair is just as straight.

In the Foreword to the l’Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar, Flacourt believes that the first people who arrived in Madagascar “are the Zafe-Ibrahim or those of the line of Abraham, who inhabit the island of Sainte-Marie and the neighboring lands, especially as, having the use of circumcision, they have no spot of Mohametism, do not know Mahomet or the caliphs, and repute his followers for Caffres and men without law, do not eat and do not enter into any covenant with them. They celebrate and rest on Saturdays, not Fridays like the Moors, and have no name similar to those they bear, which leads me to believe that their ancestors passed through this island from the first transmigrations of the Jews or that they are descended from the oldest families of the Ishmaelites, from before the captivity of Babylon, or from those who could have remained in Egypt around the exit of the children of Israel: they retained the name of Moses, Isaac, Joseph, Jacob and Noah. Some may have come from the coasts of Ethiopia.

Note: However, the only archeological work done on the island focused on the pirates of the late 17^th century.

In Serenambe a place on the main land above the northern tip of St Marie some small excavations took place and recently black-on-yellow Yemeni ceramics have been discovered (13^th to 16^th century).

The Island of St Marie stretches from 8.2 to 8.6 fingers of Nach (or 17.1°S to 16.7°S) and north of it is the Antongila Bay. Which is filled with big medieval settlements. Between St Marie and the bay, we still have Serenambe than at the beginning of the bay Sandrakatsy a bid further Fahambahy and deep in the bay the island of Mangabe. In most of these imported ceramics have been found. St Marie might well have been one more settlement further south.