Queen Ranavalona didn’t only kill people with tangena though. In one incident she tied 15 Christians above a 150 ft drop before cutting the rope and watching them clatter to their deaths on the rocks below. On another occasion she killed a bunch of Europeans and put their decapitated heads on stakes and lined the beach with them.
If she needed to tackle a group of dissenting soldiers she would simply send them on exhausting long walks through the malaria infested swamp land; if Ranavalona felt particularly cruel she would use a method known as “progressive amputation” which sounds like no fun at all.
In an interesting twist of fate Queen Ranavalona managed to keep killing from beyond her grave. During her funeral a spark ignited a barrel of gunpowder that was to be used in the event killing a handful of people and destroying some royal buildings.
Historians in the past looked on her as a vicious xenophobic tyrant but modern historians see her a little more favourably. She was blood thirsty and cruel to a certain extent, but they were blood thirsty and cruel times. She wanted to keep her land for herself and her people and rid them of the West’s fat colonial fingers. Fair enough, we were pretty greedy back then (and still are). Consequently Madagascar still has an incredibly rich variety of culture and ancient art left in situ. So in some respects she got the job done. Don’t cross her though.
☛ More: Most Brutal Execution Methods #3: Death By Slow Slicing (NSFW)
