Mahafaly carved wooden grave markers, called Aloalo, feature imagery significant to the deceased’s life.Young boys with an ox-drawn cart, typical of transport in the remote regions of southwest Madagascar.The Mahafaly tomb of a traveler is constructed in the shape of an airplane, surrounded by Aloalo grave markers and scores of sacred cattle horns.A funeral procession of the casket to the burial ground.Along way to the burial ground, family and friends pay homage to the deceased. At right, grave markers are prepared for the burial.At the burial ground the casket is positioned under a bed of rocks on top of which cattle horns and grave markers will be placed.A three-story tomb resembling a hotel signifies the wealth and status of a deceased man. The tomb is vastly larger than the wooden house he lived in during his lifetime.At left: the Mahafaly tomb of Vontaly, a revered elder, is surrounded by walls covered in paintings depicting scenes from his life. At righ: a portrait of Vontaly is featured at the top of the staircase to his tomb.The paintings on the walls surrounding Vantaly’s tomb depict scenes from his home and lifetime.The style of Malagasy tombs varies largely according to ethnic group and location, often featuring lifesized sculptural representations of twins or paintings of the deceased.In the southern highlands, the Betsileo people wrap their dead in lengths of handwoven cloth with the deceased’s name written on each shroud for identification. The bodies are placed in a collective tomb and taken out every two years for a ceremony called Famadihana, a ritual rewrapping of the bones.Betsileo people gather to prepare for the Famadihana ceremony. They collect new Lamba shrouds for the rewrapping, and woven mats for carrying the body.Portraits of late loved ones are carried in procession to the tomb.Bodies are then taken out of the burial chamber and lovingly rewrapped in lengths of fine handwoven silk or cotton. At the height of the ceremony, family members carry the deceased in woven mats around the burial chamber and dance with them to the accompaniment of Malagasy musicians.Throughout Madagascar, women perform celebratory dances in honor of the deceased. Mahafaly women wear colorfully printed lambahoany cloths knotted and draped around their bodies. The cloths feature repeated patterns with a contrasting border, and often contain a proverb printed along the lower edge.Throughout the night, women prepared food for the scores of guests attending the funeral.The Mahafaly royal graves, some four hundred years old, are found deep within a spiny forest at the desert’s edge in southwest Madagascar.The Mahafaly burial sites feature carved and painted grave markers placed alongside sacred zebu horns from animals sacrificed to honor a king or a noble.Mahafaly grave markers depict scenes from the life of the deceased. The images at top are ancient grave markers, the images at bottom have been recently carved.A Mahafaly Grave marker depicts a man loading a bus filled with passengers.
