Aloalo tomb sculpture (Mahafaly).
Madagascar.
Wood, height: 226.6 cm.
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology
and Anthropology, Philadelphia.
The most familiar, yet least understood forms produced in
southwestern Madagascar are likely the carvings placed on tombs
by the Mahafaly. The basis of their livelihood, the humped zebu
cattle, also serves as an important theme in their figurative art,
especially on aloalo, which serve a clear honourary function. Vast,
solid box-like tombs cut out of natural stone are the most
prominent feature of their landscape and are most often saved for
chiefly and royal lineages. They are in the isolated in the countryside
and are often topped with a series of tall sculpted poles.
Despite the continued evolution in form and content, the
sculpture displayed on these stone platforms retains identifiable
elements. Usually, the entire piece is carved from a single piece of
wood. Sometimes the bottom is plain and other times there is a
standing figure, while the top tends to be an open-work structure
of geometric shapes, usually crescents and circles often
interpreted as varying stages of the moon. The upper-most figure
is the most varied from the rest of the aloalo, birds and humped
cattle are the most frequent subjects - cattle are sacrificed during
the funerary rites and the horns are planted in the stone tomb
next to the aloalo. The purpose of this figure is to be an
intercessor between the world of the living and the dead and the
term is generally interpreted as being a derivitive of the word alo
which means messenger or intermediary. In this case, alomay
also refer to the central element and interlocking geometry of
circles and crescents which provide the central adornment of the
sculpture and serve as its most distinctive feature.
Aloalo tomb sculpture (Mahafaly).
Madagascar.
Wood, height: 193 cm.
Private collection.