Aitos are wood or stone figures that were made to represent ancestors. Typically these were positioned in the middle of large altars called menaka which were located in the centre of Timorese villages. Menaka were at the ritual heart of village life and aitos figures represented the physical presence of the ancestors in ritual life.There are two different types of aitos figures found. Matched pairs of male and female figures in wood, naturalistically carved, such as these, as well as highly stylised single figures with two (or rarely four)faces carved into them. These have large flat head dresses and doubled as a sort of altar upon which offerings and/or ritual implements could be placed.
