This article examines the Malagasy anaphor tena ‘body’. It is shown that this anaphor is a bare noun (NP) and therefore has a highly restricted distribution. Tena is then contrasted with another anaphor-like element, ny tenany ‘her/his body’. It is argued that ny tenany is not an anaphor, per se, but a complex nominal (DP) with a possessive pronoun that need not be bound.