Mahafaly Aloalo Funerary Post
The aloalo are the carved funerary posts of the Mahafaly people of southwestern Madagascar, tall wooden stelae that stand on the stone tombs of chiefs and wealthy families. The name comes from alo, 'intermediary' or 'messenger', and the posts are believed to help the dead cross into the community of the ancestors. A classic aloalo rises through a column of openwork geometric shapes, crescents and circles often read as the phases of the moon, to a finial carved as a human figure, a zebu, or a bird such as the cattle egret, while the horns of zebu sacrificed at the funeral are arranged at the to