Tomb of an important man with all of his cattle buried alongside, Ampanihy, Madagascar

Ampanihy, Madagascar. Cattle is the primary (if not the only) measure

of wealth in the deep south of Madagascar. The more cattle a man owns,

the more wealthy (and thereby important) he is. When he dies, his

entire herd must die with him so that he can continue to enjoy their

wealth in his afterlife. Even though this precludes intergenerational

wealth exchange, requiring each successive generation to rebuild their

own herds from scratch, tradition allows that all of a deceased man's

cattle are not slaughtered simultaneously. Rather, they are killed one

by one over the course of several months after his death at a pace at

which the extended family and neighbors can keep up with eating the

meat. So at least it doesn't go entirely to waste! Once the cattle are

all dead, their skulls are embedded amongst the stones that fill the

gravesite with their horns sticking upward to show to passersby that

here lies an important and wealthy man.