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Published: August 18th 2009
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Tana Toraja, most definitely an area of outstanding natural beauty.
We enjoyed Tentana, an area 10hrs north by car. However due to sectarian troubles between Christians and Muslims travel in this area is not recommended by the Home office. We were unaware of this, thankfully, so spent a few days enjoying the scenery of rolling hills covered in forests and cocoa plantations, the friendly people, and the absence of tourists. By this time we had ‘chummed up’ with team Dutch, a lovely Hollander couple we met on the Togean islands and found a shared sense of humour.
We drove south to Toraja through yet more beautiful scenery, more rainforest than we saw in borneo and arrived in a very comfortable hotel. The area is famous for it’s elaborate animist funeral ceremonies, we got ourselves a guide - Gibson (the area is 90% Christian so lots of familiar names kept popping up) and set off for a funeral the next day (apparently the BIGGEST day of the year, however we found that we were told that every day, so it started to wear a little thin).
The funeral season runs from July to September. Admittedly people die all year round,
so the tradition goes that the dead person is kept in a special room in the families shared house (see pics of traditional houses with roofs like boats, supposedly as a reminder of the ancestors who arrived by boats. However, how they got to landlocked toraja is a mystery to me). The person is treated as if they are still alive, with food being brought to them, people talking to them, and their clothes being changed regularly. During this period the family save as much money as they can in order to put on the most elaborate funeral possible.
The family build simple bamboo ‘cottages’ around the base of their house to contain the visiting guests, then they buy the buffalo. We visited the livestock market which was a veritable car showroom of buffalo. The beasts with blue eyes and pink skin, often referred to as Mercedes, were worth the most, up to 15mil rupiah. When we asked why? Because they are rare. Families will buy as many as they can afford in order to show their wealth, even to the point of bankrupting themselves.... The buffalo were treated well, with their owners washing them and feeding them, the
blue eyed buffalo
the mercedes of the buffalo world, apparently pigs however were a different story. They also can be part of the funeral ceremony, as a cheaper sacrifice. They were strapped to bamboo in lines, unable to move, screaming. Quite a disturbing sight and actually made me quite seriously rethink my love of bacon and roast ham. After they were bought they would be strapped to the back of a motorbike, or stuck in the back of a minibus, still tied up, still screaming, to get to the funeral.
We felt slightly strange about turning up at a funeral of someone we had never met before, however we were assured that as long as we bought a big pack of cigarettes, we would be made more than welcome. We dressed in our smartest clothes (pretty hard with a choice of only 2 t-shirts) and followed our guide into the countryside. The ceremony lasts 3 days, this consists of a day of receiving the guests, a day of sacrifice, and a day of shutting the whole thing down. Our day was a mix of day 1 and 2. Guests were arriving, being put into the ‘holding’ area, then moved to their respective cottages, with the grandchildren leading a procession
to welcome the newcomers, offering cigarettes to the males, and betel nuts to the women. Simon, our dutch friend, and tim were offered the clove cigarettes, and politely told that it was ‘tradition’, not the best thing for two ex-smokers. As the guests arrived their funeral gift of buffalos or pigs was noted down, 2 reasons for this; to pay tax per sacrifice to the government, and so when they conduct a funeral for a member of their own family, a gift of the same amount is returned. Each buffalo/pig was taken off and slaughtered in a corner, then chopped up by a gang of professional butchers. The meat was then stuffed into bamboo tubes along with vegetables and cooked over the fire - very tasty. Tourism is down very heavily at the moment in Sulawesi, many people are discouraged believing it to be an unstable and dangerous place. It was safe and friendly and the lack of tourists made for an extremely welcoming atmosphere. The son of the dead dude came and welcomed us personally, seemingly pleased with the gift of cigarettes (to me it was like saying ‘hope you die soon too’, but smoking is a massive part
of Indonesian culture) and invited us to have some food and drink. The day was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, a fascinating insight into how a strongly Christian culture can engage in traditions of a completely different, ancient religion of their ancestors, without feeling any conflict with their everyday faith.
The next day team dutch and team English went walking. It is a very popular area for trekking, but due to a shortage of funds, we couldn’t afford to hire a guide and stay overnight in a village. Instead we took a bemo (small minibus) to a village set on a hill, and attempted to do a circular walk. Unsuprisingly we got lost. Ended up scrambling through rice paddies to kind of the right place, and got back to the hotel late after persuading a group of young lads to give us a lift back on their motorbikes, my driver couldn’t have been older than 13, but I wasn’t one to complain at that late hour. The next day we decided on taking it easy and hiring motorbikes to see the area. We saw some beautiful villages, and found that the traditional torajan house is still a strong part of
the culture, not just an old hangover kept on for the tourists. We also saw some cave graves. Tunnels dug into the rocks with doors attached to the outside and model torajan houses to keep watch over them. We also visited a mass cave grave which was a very impressive sight. Outside the entrance to the cave was a very detailed row of model dolls representing the people buried within. This cave belonged to a specific family, one of the descendants showed us around with a bright lamp. It seemed that coffins had been shoved in willy nilly. Some were open, piles of skulls and bones lined the walls, it was fascinating, a completely different approach to death and funerals than we have in the west. We passed two days in this way, visiting remote villages, driving past terraced rice paddies of differing electric greens and eating some great chicken and sambal.
We found the forests and scenery we were expecting in borneo, an intriguing ancient culture and more friendly smiles and ‘HELLO MIISTERS’ than we could have hoped for. This was Sulawesi.
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