The Tsimihety are a Malagasy ethnic group

Ethnic groups of Madagascar

The number of ethnic groups of Madagascar has long been a point of contention and debate. The island of Madagascar is predominantly populated by people broadly classified as belonging to the broader Malagasy ethnic identity...

 located near the north-central coast of Madagascar

Madagascar

The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

. Their name means "those who do not cut their hair," in reference to their refusal to adhere to the customs imposed by the rule of Merina

Merina

The Merina are an ethnic group from Madagascar. The Merina are concentrated in the Highlands and speak the official dialect of the Malagasy language, which is a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian language group derived from the Barito languages, spoken in southern Borneo. Their ancestors, the...

 King Radama I., numbering around one million (approx. 989,000 or 1.200.000) in population.

Tsimihety society and economy, as in much of Madagascar, is agricultural in focus. The Tsimihety speak a dialect of the Malagasy language

Malagasy language

Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...

, which is a branch of the Malayo-polynesian language group

Malayo-Polynesian languages

The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. These are widely dispersed throughout the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia...

 derived from the Barito languages

Barito languages

The Barito languages are a score of Dayak languages of Borneo, and most famously Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar. They are named after the Barito River....

, spoken in southern Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

. Their particular dialect has Arabic and French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 elements as well.

According to anthropologist David Graeber

David Graeber

David Rolfe Graeber is an American anthropologist and anarchist who currently holds the position of Reader in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He was an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University, although Yale controversially declined to rehire him, and his...

, the Tsimihety exist almost entirely independently of the contemporary Madagascar nation-state, maintaining their own extremely egalitarian, non-hierarchical society. Their history of autonomy extends all the way back to the Maroansetra dynasty in the sixteenth century, up through French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

colonial rule and today.