Bongo Funerary Post
This is a funerary post hand carved by the Bongo People of Sudan. The Bongo carve these when an important person from the community passes and place them at their graves.
Sculpted figures were at best idealized representations of the dead and not portraits of a specific person. Among the Bongo large sculptures recognized and honored male elites, warriors, chiefs or locally significant personages. Within a small fenced gravesite the large figurative sculptures were part of tableaux of smaller figures representing family members while the abstracted pole style of funerary figures will often have ridged necks with each ridge purportedly indicating an enemy or large animal killed. Erected with a ceremony during which dishes of food were left at the grace site the figures and posts were also said to protect against sorcerers spells.
This is a funerary post hand carved by the Bongo People of Sudan. The Bongo carve these when an important person from the community passes and place them at their graves.
Sculpted figures were at best idealized representations of the dead and not portraits of a specific person. Among the Bongo large sculptures recognized and honored male elites, warriors, chiefs or locally significant personages. Within a small fenced gravesite the large figurative sculptures were part of tableaux of smaller figures representing family members while the abstracted pole style of funerary figures will often have ridged necks with each ridge purportedly indicating an enemy or large animal killed. Erected with a ceremony during which dishes of food were left at the grace site the figures and posts were also said to protect against sorcerers spells.
This is a funerary post hand carved by the Bongo People of Sudan. The Bongo carve these when an important person from the community passes and place them at their graves.
Sculpted figures were at best idealized representations of the dead and not portraits of a specific person. Among the Bongo large sculptures recognized and honored male elites, warriors, chiefs or locally significant personages. Within a small fenced gravesite the large figurative sculptures were part of tableaux of smaller figures representing family members while the abstracted pole style of funerary figures will often have ridged necks with each ridge purportedly indicating an enemy or large animal killed. Erected with a ceremony during which dishes of food were left at the grace site the figures and posts were also said to protect against sorcerers spells.
Tribe: Bongo
Country: Sudan
Age: >200
Height: 70 in.
Width: 10 in.