Tana Toraja
A Highland Region Whose Funeral Rites Are Among The Most Elaborate On Earth; The Dead Are Kept At Home For Months Or Years Until The Family Can Afford The Ceremony, Then Buried In Cliff Faces Watched Over By Carved Effigies · Rantepao, South Sulawesi
The Toraja of highland Sulawesi spend more on death than on life, and they say so. A FUNERAL - rambu solo' - takes days, costs more than a house, and requires the slaughter of buffalo whose value runs into tens of thousands of dollars. UNTIL THE FAMILY CAN AFFORD IT, THE DEAD PERSON IS NOT CONSIDERED DEAD: the body is kept at home, embalmed, spoken to, brought food, and described as ill. That can last months or years. The burial is not in the ground but in a CHAMBER CUT INTO A CLIFF FACE, with a TAU-TAU, a carved wooden effigy, set on a balcony outside to watch over the valley. BABIES WHO DIED BEFORE TEETHING ARE PLACED INSIDE LIVING TREES. The houses are as striking as the graves - TONGKONAN, with vast upswept roofs like boats. Visitors are genuinely welcome at funerals, and should arrive understanding what they are attending - a bereavement, with a gift in hand and dark clothes on, rather than a spectacle laid on for them.
Tana Toraja, South Sulawesi, Rantepao, South Sulawesi, Indonesia
THERE IS NO GATE. Tana Toraja is a region, based on RANTEPAO, reached by an EIGHT TO TEN HOUR DRIVE FROM MAKASSAR or by flights into the small Toraja airport. THE GRAVE SITES - LEMO, LONDA, KETE KESU, KAMBIRA - each charge a small local entry fee and keep daylight hours; at Londa you hire a lamp-carrier to go into the cave. FUNERALS ARE THE REASON TO COME AND THEY ARE NOT SCHEDULED FOR VISITORS. Most fall in the DRIER MONTHS, ROUGHLY JUNE TO SEPTEMBER, after the harvest, and your guesthouse or guide will know what is happening that week. ATTENDING REQUIRES AN INTRODUCTION AND A GIFT - cigarettes, sugar or palm wine are customary - and modest dark clothing. MA'NENE, the ritual re-dressing of exhumed bodies, happens in some villages in August and is not a fixed date.