TANA TORAJA - THE PLACE WHERE DEATH İS KİNG

In August 2012, I made a long trip in Indonesia with two friends. We visited seven islands among which Sulawesi, to see the Tana Toraja region. We reached the main town of the region, Rantepao, by car from Makassar, the biggest city in Sulawesi. The car journey takes around nine hours, the last ones being spent on mountainous, winding roads. Not an easy trip. Naturally, I asked our local guide why we had not flown to Rantepao (I was so used to flying by then since in Indonesia I flew exactly thirteen times on domestic flights to go from one spot to another). His answer was quite interesting. It seems there is a small airport in Rantepao but only one company flies there and people have named the company ''MAYBE FLİGHTS'', since its two planes do not fly when there are clouds in the sky, when it rains, when it sizzles, when there is some wind and when there is fog - which is more understandable- , or because the plane simply has a mechanical failure. Flying being so unreliable, going by car is the only option. We reached our destination in the middle of the night, totally worn out, but as of the next morning I realised it was well worth the effort.

What you first see in Tana Toraja are the many traditional houses, called tongkonan. Toraja is one of the few places in Indonesia where traditional structures continue to be built even today, so you can see tongkonans everywhere. The most distinctive feature of these houses is their saddle-shaped roofs with each end shooting high into the sky.  Legend ties the shape of the roofs to the origins of the Torajans; they are said to have come from the mountains of North Vietnam thousands of years ago. They began their voyage south, and after a few years of island-hopping they came to Sulawesi. They made their way up the Sungai Sa'dan river as far as possible, then continued along the river on foot to their present valley home. They brought their boats with them and hung them between trees for shelter. From the shape of the boat supposedly comes the shape of the roof, to always remind them of their roots.

The roofs are made of bamboo pieces stacked in an interlocking style. Modern houses though usually have sheet-metal roofs, but they maintain the same shape. The exterior walls are made of wood panels without using any nails; they are built so that everything slots together and holds together through rain and shine. The pole supporting the north end of the roof may have a row of real buffalo horns affixed to it. This is taken as a sign of wealth.

Facing each tongkonan, there will be one or more rice barns built in the same basic shape but much smaller in size. Again, the more rice barns you have, the richer you are.

 Among the Torajan no other celebration is as important as the one celebrating the passage from this world to the next. Births and birthdays are practically non-events, and weddings pale in comparison. The ceremonies are so elaborate and costly that families must save up and plan for months if not for years before the funeral can be held.

During the waiting period, the body of the deceased is wrapped in several layers of cloth and kept under the house. I have to admit I did not sense any foul smell  during my stay in Tana Toraja, but I still could not exactly figure out how you can live in a house with the smell of a decomposing body under it. Anyway, the soul of the deceased is believed to linger around the village until the funeral ceremony is completed, only after which the soul begins its journey to Puya, the land of souls or afterlife. So the longer you take to bury someone, the longer the soul aimlessly wanders around.

Funerals are usually held during the dry season, mostly July and August, when farmers rest, schools are closed, members of the family living in cities can take their vacation and come  home to their village. This leads to the very strange concept of Funeral Season.

For the funeral, a set of temporary structures will be built either on an open field or between and around the village houses, always forming en enclosed courtyard. The newly built structures will be nothing more than simple covered viewing platforms where guests can sit on the ground to observe the festivities. The family of the deceased, close friends, and relatives coming from other villages will live on those platforms for the length of the funeral, which usually lasts three days. The deceased, being the guest of honor, will get his/her own elaborate platform from which to watch the events. The ceremony itself mostly consists of the sacrifice of pigs and buffaloes. Although formally Christian, the Torajan still believe the deceased needs the animals, but especially the buffalo, in the afterlife to carry them to Puya. The number of slaughtered buffaloes will depend on the importance and wealth of the person who died.

FUNERAL GROUND WİTH THE PLATFORM FOR THE DECEASED İN THE MİDDLE.

THE TEMPORARY STRUCTURES

THE DECEASED WATCHES HİS/HER OWN FUNERAL

As of the morning of the first day, guests start coming and are expected to bring gifts. Even though we were going to a funeral ceremony uninvited, we also brought a present in the form of  kreteks, those clove-smelling cigarettes that Indonesians love.  We were told to wear black, since it is the funeral color, and we complied. We gave our present to our host (the son of the deceased) who led us to a high platform and even gave us chairs to sit on. He must have thought those foreigners cannot sit on the ground. Looking at the people who were brought to our platform, I can easily say we were among the VIPs.  The only thing ''black'' I saw during the ceremony were the clothes, since apart from that a funeral  in Tana Toraja looks more like a happy gathering of relatives, friends and guests, eating, drinking and having fun, while shedding some animal blood. It is understandable, since a funeral in Tana Toraja is not for mourning, but is a celebration of the person's life and of him or her taking the first step into the next world.
In the funeral we attended, the presents brought by the guests were mainly pigs and our first experience , while walking towards the funeral grounds, was the screeching of pigs and that never stopped. Strapped to long pieces of bamboo, the pigs are brought in, dumped on the ground and left to squeal at their fate since they are soon to end as bacon and ham. A little later, from behind a small hill, came very unnerving pig shrieks and we realised the pig slaughter had started. We never saw the slaughter of pigs but only young men with bloody knives.  It seems pigs are always killed elsewhere. Only buffaloes are honored enough to be killed in front of everyone, and that takes place during the third day of the ceremonies. Good. Pig shrieks are bad enough; I don't know if I could have watched several buffaloes being killed and cut to pieces in front of my eyes. The meat is then cooked to feed all those present and some pieces are distributed to the poorest.


      

BLACK İS THE COLOR

             

GİFTS ARE ARRİVİNG

THE BACON İS LEAVİNG

Every half  hour, guests from other villages arrived, bearing their gifts and parading around the arena, men first, women behind. Close members of the family of the deceased, in very colorful  beaded head bands and necklaces over black dresses as far as women are concerned, welcomed them and guided them to their platform. It seems one person is responsible for noting down the details of every gift brought in a little book, so that each one of them can be returned at the next funeral. In this way, a kind of reciprocation is carried out between villages.  

 At around 11 a.m., a long procession of women came from a place that I learned is the kitchen, to offer tea, coffee and cookies to all those present, me included.   And the coffee was excellent. What a service ! It seems those ladies are members of a women's organisation whose only duty is to go and help at funerals by serving drinks and food to those present, and that on a charitable basis. How interesting ! Special NGOs have been created for special funerals.

During all this time, a buffalo with a slit neck was lying in the middle of the field. I wondered why and also asked myself why one only since this seemed to be the funeral of a rich man. It was explained to me that on the first day of the funeral, as soon as the event starts, a buffalo is killed since Torajan consider that a person is not truly dead (even though he/she could have been kept under the house for a year or more), until the moment the first buffalo is sacrificed; then the spirit can begin its journey to the Land of Souls.
As lunch time approached, the dead buffalo was pulled by several men under a tent and cut to pieces. I do not know if the buffalo was going to be served as lunch or its meat distributed. What astonished me is myself. I cannot look at any  butchery, and here I am calmly looking at how to cut a buffalo to pieces. I presume the whole atmosphere of the place affected me and I started seeing things through Torajan eyes.

A BUFFALO AS A LUMP OF GREASE

                                     

The last thing to do before leaving  was to visit the kitchen. Behind the buildings, a huge area had been transformed into a kitchen at the back of which rice was being cooked in huge pots. In front of the kitchen, several men were putting pieces of pig meat into bamboo tubes. Those tubes would then go on a fire to be cooked for four to five hours. Then the meat would be taken out of the bamboo tube and served with boiled rice; and  you have a delicious Toraja specialty called Pa'piong.  The people here are said to appreciate pa'piong a lot; I have to admit I have not tasted it. But Bon Appetit to all who want to.

The next day, in the late afternoon, we stumbled by pure chance to the third day of a Torajan funeral.  While driving on a back road, we saw buffalo skins  and people carrying huge bags of meat, so we stopped. There was a village and lots of people around. When I entered the village,  I had difficulty absorbing what my eyes saw. Where am I ? This was no village anymore, but a slaughterhouse. The ground on which I walked was a mixture of mud and blood. There were bloody pieces of buffalo everywhere and men with machetes still busy cutting what remained of the animals  while making jokes among themselves.  The audience of funeral guests was busy gossiping with one another as if nothing was happening. An odour of blood and death was permeating the air. And  here I was, taking pictures. I must have gone crazy myself. Under  normal conditions, I should have fled the scene at once, but no, here I was watching with great interest, so enthralling was the scene.  
The funeral is soon to be over as it is late afternoon, the animals are ready to carry the deceased's soul to Puya and  that particular soul will be well-accompanied by looking at the number of buffaloes that have been killed . Why shed so much blood for a funeral ? To go to heaven of course. When he dies, the spirit journeys to the netherworld where it is judged by looking at the number of animal spirits that have been sent along with him. In other words, the larger the number of animals killed during a funeral, the better the chances of the spirit to get to heaven. That is an excellent excuse for the slaughter that takes place, for all the blood spilled. To save one's soul.

WHERE İS THE BUFFALO ?

                                                   

SACKS OF MEAT ARE BEİNG CARRİED AWAY

THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE

                                                        

But Nature has its ways. Just at the moment I left the village cum slaughterhouse, Nature reminded me that all is not so bad and there is beauty everywhere if you know where to look, and that in the form of a rainbow that gloriously appeared in the sky.  



What happens after a funeral ceremony ? Well, Torajan people are buried, but not underground. The final resting place can be a small tongkonan, a boulder, a cliff, a tree or even be hanging. Torajan graves are quite varied in sort, quite distinctive and elaborate.

The Torajan landscape is littered with huge boulders, evidence of volcanic eruptions thousands of years ago. If you look closely, you see that some of those boulders have ''doors''. These doors are the entrances to vaults where Torajans keep their dead; usually several members of the same family are buried in one boulder which itself is decorated with paintings. On top of, or beside the boulder, you see small structures shaped like traditional tongkonan houses. These are  biers used to transport the coffin from the funeral site to the burial place. A new bier is constructed for every person and used only once, then abandoned at the tomb site. These boulders are tombs for the ordinary people.

THE TORAJAN BULL HORN AND THE CHRİSTİAN CROSS

The Torajan upper classes as well as rich people get star treatment in the afterlife. Instead of small boulders, their tombs are carved into cliff faces. But the really big difference are the tau tau. In addition to the tombs themselves, long balconies are carved into the rock. Along the balconies are placed wooden dolls called tau tau. The statues are about half life-size, dressed up and represent the deceased person. The arms of the statues  are outstretched to welcome family members, but to me they gave the impression of not being happy where they are, and begging me to come and save them. Originally, the tau tau were not intended to be exact representations of the dead, but today, the trend is to make them look more and more like the dearly departed.

 

SMALL TONGKONAN TOMB

QUİTE ELABORATE TAU TAU DOLLS

When the cliff is too dangerous to dig a cave into, people resort to Hanging Graves. A small platform is built and the coffin is suspended from a suitably high spot so that nobody can climb to steal the body and its possessions.

Babies who have not yet begun to get their teeth are buried differently than adults. Instead of stone tombs, they are put in a tree. A niche is carved in the tree, usually high above the ground, and the dead infant is put inside. A little door is made with small sticks and it is hoped eventually the tree bark will close over the hole and there will be no trace of the grave or the baby.

In Tana Toraja, to put on a good funeral, have a nice grave with  tau tau dolls, afford to have all the buffaloes necessary for your loved one to reach heaven can cost more than a whole year's salary. That  seems very illogical to us, but perfectly acceptable to a Torajan. It is as if the Torajan live for death. Nowhere I know is dying such a big, happy, bloody event.