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Published: March 30th 2013
I arrived in Makassar at about 8pm without knowing where I was going to spend the night that day, but I had the name of a street in which I knew there should be a couple of backpacker places (Jampean St).
When I left the airport I was harassed by at least 10 taxi drivers. Most of them were charging 100.000 IDR. I got one that charged me 87.500 IDR.
Makassar is a big city with about 1.6 million people. The airport surprised; pretty modern and well maintained, not like the one in Denpasar, Bali. The city also has a big port and a lively night life with lots of karaoke places and clubs.
The driver didn’t speak any English. I told him to take me to Jampean Street. When I got to the street, I couldn’t really see any backpacker places, so I got out and asked in a hotel. They told me to go to the “Legend” hostel (apparently a popular spot among backpackers) that was right beside the hotel. I got a bed in a dorm for 75.000 IDR. After leaving my stuff there I went out for a walk and ended eating
a pizza in food court that had live music.
Then, I went back to hostel to sleep. The only other person in the dorm was a Dutch guy who told me he was going to Tana Toraja the next morning. I was going there myself, but I hadn’t booked any buses to get there. I decided to go to sleep and if I managed to wake up early enough, see about the possibility to go to Tana Toraja the next morning.
I woke up at around 7am and decided to give it a try to somehow find a bus to go to Tana Toraja that same day, as there wasn’t much to do in Makassar.
I asked in the hostel reception and the woman there gave me the name of a bus company (Thila) and the address of the bus terminal. I knew that the last bus left at 10am. I had breakfast in the hostel, grabbed my stuff and left.
I started walking up the main street, stopping bemos on the way (very small vans that work as buses). Whenever I showed the piece of paper to the driver, they kept on pointing
in the direction I was walking on and kept on going – apparently no one was going there. So I just kept on walking without the slightest idea if I was going in the right direction or not and how far this bus terminal would be. After crossing a street, a bemo stopped, the driver asked me in Indonesian where I was going and I showed him the piece of paper. He told me to get on the bemo and I did.
Apparently, the driver wasn’t sure where the terminal was, because he kept asking the passengers and people in the street.
After about 20 minutes he asked some people in the street and turned out that we had passed the terminal about 300 meters before. He told me to get off and told me the people he asked would tell me where the terminal was. I walked in the direction of the terminal and was relieved when I saw the “Thila Bus” sign; so far so good.
I bought my ticket and an hour later I was on my way to Toraja. It was a 9 hours bus ride with two stops – 1
for lunch and another one to buy snacks. Both counted as toilet breaks as well. The bus wasn’t very comfortable, but I had two seats to myself. I read and slept most of the way. The landscapes were very green and somehow similar to what I had seen in Flores, but the biggest change is architecture, which changes dramatically once you get to Tana Toraja (land of the Torajans).
At around 9pm I arrived in Rantepao, the main town to stay in Toraja.
As soon as I got off of the bus, I was approached by a tourist guide (as was expected). I was the only tourist on the bus that day. The guide’s name was Hendrik and he offered to take me to my hostel. I hadn’t booked anything yet, but the name “Pia’s Poppies hostel” came to mind (it was recommended in the Lonely Planet guidebook). Hendrik took me there in his motorcycle and then I told him to meet me early the next morning to discuss a program.
Pia’s Poppies was a good choice – decent rooms for about 100.000 IDR, good food and friendly staff (it’s a family run hostel).
The next morning Hendrik and I agreed to do a 3 day tour around Rantepao. I hired the guide and a driver (Jacob) for about 50USD a day.
Good thing about going with a guide was that he had good English and was Torajan, so he was able to answer all the questions I had. I’ll describe the three days tour and write about the things Hendrik told me. I’ll also put a Wikipedia article that is pretty good and that can complement this post (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toraja).
Torajans ( the word comes from "To Riaja", translated as "people of the highlands") are all about death - This is one of the grim reaper's playground - but in a good way. The main reason I had to visit Sulawesi, was to see the Torajan culture, which intrigued me when I first read about it. I had also heard about them through other travelers.
The Torajan culture is a rich one, combining elements from the Christian and Torajan religions and their rituals. The Torajan religion or "Aluk To Dolo" is translated more or less as "way of the ancestors". Most Torajans are
Christian, but there is still a very strong influence of their old ways, something that makes their Christianity very unique. Torajans also have their own language, even though everybody also speaks Indonesian.
The first day of the tour, the program was: going to Buntu Pune (a traditional village), then to see a funeral ceremony (one of the highlights of the trip) and then to a place called Londa, to see some cave graves.
Buntu Pune was my first encounter with the Torajan culture. In the village there were a couple of Tongkonan, traditional houses that belong to a family and are the center of family life and all members of the family are expected to participate in the reunions. Tongkonan is translated as “sit together” or as Hendrik said, can mean something like “help each other out”, a concept that is strongly present in the Torajan culture. Torajans inherit the right to belong to both the father’s and mother’s Tongkonan.
The houses have different wood carvings and symbols outside, which can represent wealth, happiness, fertility, etc.
Buffalo heads usually represent nobility and buffalo horns represent the wealth of the family. There are
usually wood carvings of roosters outside which represent “law and justice”. Sometimes, to settle disputes between families, they have cockfights. The family that wins the dispute is whichever owns the winning rooster.
The houses are always oriented in a south-north position, with the entrance always facing the north. The north represents “the head of the world” and the south, “the tail of the world”. It is believed that the gods live in the north.
The Tongkonan have two floors; the first being uncovered and it was usually used to keep the buffalo, and the second floor, covered and has 3 rooms. From north to south the names of the rooms are: Tangdo’, Saali and Sunbung.
The main characteristic of these houses are the shapes of the roofs. They symbolize the boats that the ancestors of the Torajans used to get to Sulawesi from Indochina.
Facing the Tongkonan, there are smaller constructions (“Alang”), of similar shape which are used to store rice.
One other big characteristic of Torajans is that if someone in the family has a problem (or in the village), everyone is expected to help out.
Having some Tuak
With Hendrik /guide) and Jacob (driver)After the short, but very interesting first stop, we went to watch the funeral. This is when it gets interesting.
I was expecting to see one and was lucky enough to arrive just before a big one. Funeral ceremonies are perhaps the biggest events in Torajan culture. Even though most Torajans are Christians, their ceremonies are an interesting mix of their old ways and Christian rituals.
As soon as a person dies, the family lets the church know and then they have a special person come in and inject about 2lts of formaldehyde in the corpse, to preserve it. The corpse is then placed in a coffin and kept in the Tongkonan, in the southernmost room, with the head facing west (in the direction where the sun sets). The person is not really believed dead until the funeral ceremony. A corpse can be kept anywhere between a few days, up to 20 years or so.
A funeral is used for retribution and to thank the deceased for what he/she did for the family during his/her life. The bigger the funeral, the more the money can be collected from the family, the more
the buffalos that can be sacrificed and thus the easier for the deceased to cross over to the afterlife. Buffalos are believed to help in the journey to the next life.
A funeral can last from 1 day, up to about 10 days. A funeral (considered a “sad” ceremony) is called “Aluk Rampe Matampu” (something to do with the sun setting). A “happy” ceremony (celebrating a new Tingkonan or a wedding) is known as “Aluk Rampe Matallo” (or something having to do with the sun rising).
The funeral I went to (only to the first day), lasted a total of 4 days. During the first day, the coffin is moved from the house to the center of the village. That day the coffin is moved around the village and then placed in a special place. That day, there are receptions for the family and friends and presents are received (mostly pigs and buffalos). In the meantime, people sit in designated areas and are offered food, coffee, snacks and beer. The family hires a sort of “catering service” which takes care of this.
Tourists and other guests are expected to bring a carton of
cigarettes, which I was told, symbolizes friendship and helps create a bond with the family. The family uses the cartons to share cigarettes with their guests. Something I forgot to mention before is that Indonesians are often smoking during the day (mostly the men though).
During the ceremony, there was a master of ceremony and a priest present, both taking turns with the microphone. In the meantime, there are people walking around, tourists taking photos, processions of family and friends, food being shared, etc. The first day, there is also one sacrifice of a buffalo. As soon as the animal is sacrificed, the relatives move the coffin around, jumping and running with it and it could be considered as a “merry event”. Then the coffin is placed in a place where it gets a “special view” of the ceremonial grounds.
The second day was reception day; the family received guests and gifts from other villages. All gifts are written down, because some of them will have to be repaid afterwards.
The third day they sacrificed the buffalos and pigs. The sacrifice of roosters and chickens is considered taboo and only done
in “happy celebrations”. Cockfighting though, was part of the rituals. Nowadays is usually considered illegal and if people want to have cock fights they have to ask permission from the police and usually “pay a price” to have them and only on certain days of the funeral.
The fourth day was the burial. The burial is another event by itself. They don’t actually bury the dead in the ground. They have three types of resting grounds: cave graves, which usually belong to a specific family or village, burial houses for a family (very similar to the concept of a mausoleum) and for the richest, “hanging graves” or rock graves – holes carved out of rock walls where the coffins are placed. Just taking the coffin up a hill and then using ropes and climbers to position the coffin, often more than 100mts high is the ultimate resting place for the ones who can afford it. The fourth type of burial place (which is no longer in use) is baby graves (I’ll get to those later).
Also, for the richest people, they can have a “Tau Tau” made for them (at least 24 buffalos sacrificed
in their honor to qualify for one). The “Tau Tau” are wood puppets that resemble the deceased and placed near the coffin. The “Tau Tau” have their arms held out with their palms facing upwards, in an attitude that resembles that the deceased is asking for blessings for the family they left behind.
The other thing that nobles get when they die, is a megalithic stone placed in a special place that belongs to the village. The more important or influential the person was, the bigger the stone it gets.
About the Torajan society, there are people belonging to noble class and commoners. Nobles don’t often mix with the common people and still look highly upon their status. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re wealthy families and sometimes there will be arranged marriages between wealthy “common” families and noble families.
After seeing the funeral we went to a place called Londa, to see a cave grave belonging to a family by the name of “To Lenke”. There I saw the first Tau Tau. The caves have the skulls and skeletons lying around, outside of the coffins. I didn’t really get the explanation for
this motive.
The last stop of the day was in a small “warung” (place where they sell local food) to have some local produced palm wine (just 5% alcohol) with Hendrik and Jacob. It’s called “Tuak” or “Ba‘llo”. It wasn’t of my liking, but I didn’t mind it.
Every day I was in Toraja, the mornings were cool. At about 9am it heated up and it was very hot until about 3-4pm and then it poured rain until late at night. So, every day the tour ended at around that time, which I was totally fine with. Good balance between sightseeing and chilling out.
The second day we started by visiting a place called Karassik where I saw a place with megalithic stones.
The next stop was Lemo, a place known for its “hanging graves” (coffins placed in the rock walls). We saw more Tau Tau and a massive cave grave.
Then we went to Kambira. In this place there’s a tree that has baby graves. This is a practice that is no longer in use and babies nowadays are usually buried in caves or house graves. The bodies
of the babies were placed in the tree trunk after a hole had been dug out of the trunk. The hole was then covered with palm trees to protect the body of the baby from predatory animals. Babies were considered as being “pure”. It was believed that after the years had passed and the tree enveloped the baby’s body again, the spirit of the baby would travel to the afterworld. Babies didn’t receive funerals. I asked Hendrik about how old would a person have to be to have a funeral and his response was “about 12 years old”.
Right after the visit to the baby graves we stopped in an orphanage. Here, a man has been picking up kids whose parents have abandoned them, have died or are too poor to maintain them. He gives them clothing, a place to sleep, food and education and has been doing so for the last 20 years or so. When we got there, the kids played music with bamboo instruments and did some short traditional dances. In the meantime, I was offered some coffee, was given a bamboo flute and I gave them some money as donation.
The last
stops of the day were Lombok Bori (another cave grave) and then stopped on the way to take some photos of rice paddies and megalithic stones. Then lunch in a local restaurant (I had pork which was very good) and then back to the hostel. As usual, it rained heavily in the afternoon.
The last day of the tour was another day I was expecting: market day. There’s a big market held every 6 days, just 2km from Rantepao. The main attractions there are the buffalos. People buy them to have as gifts or to save as food. There are sometimes some very expensive and rare albino buffalos. In the market, there are a lot of pigs for sale and then everything ranging from food, wine, second-hand clothes, fruits and vegetables, live fish, etc. I spent a good 2 or 3 hours there, had some coffee and some sweet snacks (breakfast). I t was a really interesting lively and chaotic atmosphere. One thing that caught my attention in the market was that before selling roosters, they made them fight another one - mini cockfights - to see that they could actually fight.
After the
market we went to a small town and started a 1 hour walk across villages, rice paddies and beautiful landscapes. We got to Tinimbayo where we had a good panoramic view of the rice paddies and towns down below and then had lunch in Batutumonga, a picturesque little village on top of a hill.
The next two days I took off to write, sleep, buy flight tickets to my next destination, etc. One of those days i had dinner with the same Dutch guy that I had seen in Makassar (I kept running into him in different places in Toraja) and with a French woman whith whom I also kept running into in different places. One of the best places to eat in Rantepao is the "Café Aras".
I almost went to the Toggean Islands – apparently with very good diving. These islands are north of Toraja, but just to get there was almost 3 days of car rides and ferries. Because I was limited with the remaining time on my visa and money, it wasn’t worth doing the trip, so I just stayed a few more days in Toraja and got ready to
go diving in the Philippines.
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Daniel F. Arellano
non-member comment
Funeral
Sin duda uno de tus mejores blogs. Parece que valió la pena andar con el guía ya que la cantidad de detalles es impresionante. Good and thanks. Dad