INDONESIAN

Cylindrical offering posts, ai tos, are erected as offerings to distant ancestors. This post has two faces and represents the first ancestral pair. The people of Belu, also called Tetum, recognize three types of offering pole; ai tos, for distant progenitors, sometimes described as gods; foho, for intermediary beings; and lor, for the recently deported.

Many offerings are brought to the ai tos. When a carving is first finished, rice and a pig are sacrificed. Later, to inaugurate the post there are massive offerings from the village. At regular intervals the post is dressed in fine clothing, even an artificial beard, and food is brought to the ancestor, bei.