Tana Toraja is a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, famous for extraordinary boat-shaped roofs, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs and elaborate funeral rites. Although 90% of the Indonesian population is Muslim, the Torajans are mostly Christian with animist beliefs that are recognized by the government as the “Way of the Ancestors”.
The funeral ceremonies are a tremendously expensive social event, attended by hundreds of people and lasting several days. The richer the deceased, the more expensive the death feast. It includes dances, chants, rites and slaughtering of animals. The Torajans believe that the persons who died need water buffaloes to make their journey into Puya (the afterlife) and that they will be quicker if they have many buffaloes.
We attended one of the bigge
r funerals. Men, women and children performed colourful dances. The guests arrived, bringing along dozens of pigs which were screaming horribly, anticipating their fate, and chopping noises were always present.
The funeral is often held months or years after death, so that the deceased’s family has time to raise the respective funds. The soul is thought to linger around the village until the ceremony is completed. We heard of one case waiting for 35 years for the funeral. The Torajans do not consider death as an abrupt event, but as a gradual process towards the “land of souls”. In the meantime, the body is conserved with formalin and kept wrapped in layers of cloth in the family’s house, sometimes even in the bedroom.
There are several ways to lay the deceased to rest. So for example the rocky cliff and caves near Kete Kesu are full of graves: Decayed and sometimes open wooden coffins full of skulls and bones suspended or fallen between the rocks or lying in caves. Wealthy families place a wood-carved effigy called Tau Tau, resembling closely the person who died, next to the grave.
