Books

This book is both a cultural study and a history of the funerary sculpture of the Sakalava, who inhabited the west coast of Madagascar from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century. Research by anthropologists Sophie Goedefroit and Jacques Lombard forms the foundation for this book, which discusses the evolutionary path of the art in the funerary necropolis of Andolo. Sakalava funerary art is based on wooden tombs, and this book’s detailed and well-illustrated analyses show how, beginning with a very simple tomb model, the works grew more elaborate, often coming to be decorated with erotic statuary, which served as symbols of procreation and of life. Often consisting of couples and occasionally of several figures, this statuary is well known to connoisseurs of African art but documentation on it has been scarce. The present work is thorough, fascinating, and abundantly illustrated, and goes far to remedy that situation. This is a fine new reference tool.