Serge (Yakut Carved Hitching Post)
Carved wooden hitching post of the Yakut (Sakha) people, set up at home and at the ysyakh summer festival, often topped with carved horse-heads. The sacred Aar Baah Serge of the festival stands on the eastern side as a symbolic world-tree, a ladder linking earth to the upper world where the aiyy deities dwell; horses are tied facing east during the celebration. The post is hewn from a single larch or birch, its foot buried deep and its upper part carved into a horse's head or into stacked, cup-shaped tiers. Around a family dwelling several serges stood, each with its use: the home post for dai