The ancient Sakalava Kings held an absolute power that they drew from the cult of the " Dady " or " Jiny " , symbolic remains of defunct kings . According to a Sakalava legend , a king has had the initiative to bathe the bones of these ancestors in the Tsiribihina to appease their anger and consequently to eradicate the long and worrying period of dryness that has raged in his kingdom .

 

Formerly the ceremony lasted weeks . Peoples from all the Menabe kingdom regions arrived to Belo-sur-Tsiribihina to venerate the defunct kings . Today , it is every five years that the Fitampoha is celebrated at Belo-sur-Tsiribihina , capital of the Sakalava dynasty that belongs to the king Toera and to the prince Kamamy. The ceremony takes place in the sand islet of Ampasy, in the middle of the river Tsiribihina, and it is there that royal relics will be brought by the Mpibaby , red covered and girdled porters and washed by Mpiamby.

 

Once the Dady dried and coated with zebu grease preserved one week before in view of the  sacrifice  , some come to prostrate there to ask the ancestors blessings  . The following day , it is the solemn return of the relics to Belo-sur-Tsiribihina . The Dady are replaced in its place until the next ceremony.

 

During all the ceremony in Ampasy , place of ablutions , the direction of cardinal points is inverted , rites symbolizing the return to the period where was created the Sakalava kingdom ; one resuscitates the past to give the life to ancestors , in a word the Fitampoha.