This paper discusses different ways of reckoning group identity in the Ankarana region of northern Madagascar. It focuses on two distinct but related models that people employ in construing the meaning of the term 'Antankarana' and identifying the boundaries of the collective it denotes. The first, inclusive, model suggests that any person who respects the moral and political orders of the region can be classified among Antankarana, while the second, exclusive, model implies an objectified collective determined ultimately by descent. In addition to promoting the need for further anthropological study of identity reckoning, this paper discusses how rites and institutions that ideally serve to include people within a traditional political order have been reshaped through colonial and into post-colonial times as mechanisms for creating exclusive boundaries.