Tana Toraja - The Ceremonies

Warning: This post contains some photos of dead livestock. However, unless you are a card carrying member of PETA and a vegan you really have no excuse not to look at them.

Besides checking out the burial sites and the picturesque rice field landscapes the other attraction (and main reason most people visit) in Tana Toraja is to attend a funeral ceremony. The Torajan people are predominately Christian, but the ceremonies are a strong reminder of Aluk Todolo - the religion before the missionaries came. The funerals are large, elaborate ceremonies lasting several days where hundreds of people can attend and need to be fed. The ceremonies are also notorious for their honest-to-goodness animal sacrifices of water buffaloes and pigs.

Funerals take place in the dry season from July - September. So logically you may ask , “Well what happens if Grandpa dies in the rainy season, January for example?” Good question. Well, Grandpa will stay in the house in an open casket in a mummified state until his family has saved enough money to have a big send-off and until the right season begins. We do not see this on our trip. However, I do see another traveler’s photo of his guide’s Grandmother who is patiently waiting for her big day. She has been in a coffin in the house for 10 months already.

Arriving to Tana Toraja in mid-September is actually a perfect time. It is still peak ceremony season, but most of the tourist hordes have already returned to Western Europe which means foreigners are not tripping over each other to get that perfect shot of an animal carcass. As usual, we first decide to try to find a ceremony ourselves and get there by using public transportation. The guides do want to divulge much to people not rendering their services. There are so many Torajan villages in the area and trying to pin down exact info in Indonesia can sometimes be like channel surfing - 250 options and still not sure if anything is good on TV.

A procession

So after asking our hotel staff, a guy at our breakfast warung who asks other people eating with us, a Spanish tourist at the bus terminal, an Indonesian guy at the bus terminal, a taxi driver, guys with a buffalo (sacrificial buffalo?) in their truck, and passengers in a shared taxi wearing black clothing we finally hop in a vehicle and go to Sa’dan. It ends up that this is the wrong and right decision. We are not at a funeral per say. It is an opening ceremony where the deceased and his immediate family move to ceremonial houses for a few weeks until the big ceremonies begin. Everyone, including us, gets a lunch of rice, stewed buffalo meat and a Torajan fish dish as they announce the funeral schedule. Their will be no animal sacrifices at this time. Dang.

The deceased in the coffin watching the action below

Two days later (Monday, Sep 20) we go out with a couple from Spain, Inma and Fernando, to find a ceremony. Like us, they prefer to travel without guides and see where life leads. Yesterday we heard from an Italian guy that there is a ceremony in Batutumonga. The ride to the north is up and up. Large black volcanic rocks burst out of rice terraces. A fellow passenger in our taxi is aso heading to the funeral. He guides us down to the ceremony location. We are on a high level and the action is taking place in a pit below like a gladiator arena. The immediately noticeable thing is the six buffalo lying on the ground. Five are dead while one is still gasping its last breathes of air. A man is holding the seventh on a tether. The slice to neck with his machete is so quick that I am not sure if I even see it.

Immediately, small groups of men weilding knives move in and begin dismantling the beasts. Skins are removed, axes are used to crack open rib cages and the buffalos are professionally disected. Before the ceremony has started it has been written down exactly where every body part is going. I see one man collecting hearts. Children stand near the action taking it all in. They are the next generation of ceremonial butchers. Meanwhile, the four of us have our fill of watching the buffalo chop shop and go visit the family of the deceased bearing the traditional gift of 1 kilo of sugar. If sugar is not your thing, you could also bring packs of cigarettes. Sugar and cigarettes. I assume with all the dead meat around nobody needs a deli tray. We go up to the reception area, are offered coffee and cookies and make some small talk with the daughters and grandchildren of the dearly departed.

Buffalo horns are a prized home decoration

The next generation

Having witnessed the funeral sacrifices our plan next is to reach another ceremony for the building of a new home. One thing though we did not consider is how we are actually going to get back from Batutumonga, a small village in the mountains. We start walking and catch a lucky break. We flag down a driver who just dropped off some tourists and is returning his brand new SUV empty. The four of us get to ride down in spacious comfort -- the Tana Toraja shared taxi usually has 10 passengers squeezed into an old SUV -- and the driver gets some extra pocket money.

At this ceremony, in the center of the action are men playing drums while women and girls in traditional clothing are doing a simple slow-motion dance. While the females dance, people come up and either toss money on a handkercheif laid on the ground or tuck bills into the dancers clothing or hair. It is a G-rated striptease. Money thrown in the center goes to the dancer's family while the dancer keeps money on her person. Once money stops coming in, new dancers arrive. This is a happy festival, but like a funeral, animals will be killed. Two days from now they are killing one hundred pigs.

Money for the dancer

and money for the family

At this new house ceremony we meet Albert, an Indonesian University of Illinois alum from Sumatra whose wife is from Tana Toraja. They live in Jakarta and are spending two weeks in Tana Toraja for the ceremony. He invites us to tea, cookies, arak (local made palm wine) and karaoke and offers terrific insights into what is happening around us. Some of the Torajan practices are as strange to him as they are to us.

Torajans are known for working very hard. Many have left their villages to work in Indonesian cities and abroad. And they better save because the money spent for these events is astounding. Animal husbandry for funerals has become a huge business in the area. A pig can go for 1-3 million Rp (US $111-333) while a grown buffalo sells for 30,000,000 (US $3,333) and up. Albert tells us that buffalos valued at US $17,000 were killed at his grandmother-in-law’s funeral. Try to imagine what you could buy with US $17,000. I am sure a sacrificial buffalo does not come to mind.
 

A procession leader in traditional dress



These ceremonies are also about showing societal status. We hear of a funeral where a staggering 145 buffalo were slaughtered. Also, the host families are feeding hundreds of people every day. And if the meal is not up to snuff you can be sure there will be whispering at the well the next day. Dancers from wealthy families get showered with more cash. Everything is written down. When the Johnsons get your family a fancy spotted buffalo when your father dies, then you better get them the same when their dad kicks the bucket.

A couple days later we see one more funeral. We pass it on the road and just decide to take a look. This is a very large event for some government official. There are hundreds of people, all of whom will need grub. When we arrive they are having formal processions of visitors to the family. There are so many pigs lying on the ground tied to bamboo stakes waiting for their destiny with the knife while more are coming in by trucks. Having no real desire to see more blood-letting, we leave soon and take a ride in the beautiful countryside.

Funeral concession stands

Not a good day to be a pig in Tana Toraja

KL to Rantepao in 21 Hrs.

It is September 13, and we are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the third time. We are only here again for the sole purpose of getting a 60 day visa to Indonesia, where we are flying to on the 17th. We want to spend our final two months in Asia in Indonesia. Indonesia only gives 30 days on arrival and leaving the country again or trying to extend would be a real hassle.

The embassy opens again tomorrow after the long holiday weekend. We arrive at the embassy at 10:45 AM and get our numbers, 7072 and 7073 to just turn in our application materials. They are on 7015. I do not bring anything to read so I pass the time by eavesdropping on people‘s visa issues. 1:00 PM is lunch time. They are at number 7048 at the break. The three workers are each averaging less than four visa applications per hour. I have plenty of time to figure this out. We return precisely at 2:00 PM to resume our waiting. At 3:30 PM our numbers are finally called. We give them the application and pay the fee. Lately, we have been hearing and reading that getting a 60 day tourist visa to Indonesia is a bit iffy, so we ask the people at the window what are our chances. They tell us that they do not know. It is up to their boss, and it changes from day to day. It depends on his mood. So essentially the government of Indonesia’s visa granting process boils down to the personal feelings of the guy with his hand on the stamp. I hope he is having a good day. Our moment in the spotlight is just six minutes. I feel jilted and want to spend more time at the window.

Kuala Lumpur

I return the next afternoon to pick up our passports. With only a short 45 minute wait, I get the news. Either the boss’ favorite badminton player won a big match, or he is just happy to be eating lunch again now that Ramadan is finished, but whatever the reason we got our visas and are ready to go. We spend the next day and a half not really doing anything in KL and on the 17th at 10 AM we board an airport bound bus to the the plane bound for Makassar in Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Ronald McDonald is happy Ramadan is over and to get his lunch crowd back.

We arrive at the airport and it is early evening. We are soon reminded that we are in Indonesia by the flooded waiting area outside the airport and the tourist touts providing us with misinformation so that we will hire their services. We make a game time decision and elect to go to the bus station to take the eleven hour trip to Rentapao. This is obviously not a bad choice because we see other tourists who were on our flight. Our bus leaves at 10 PM. The air-conditioned ride is cold of course, and long. Southern Sulawesi passes by seen only from our buses headlights.


View Larger Map

We arrive in Tana Toraja - the Highlands of Southern Sulawesi around 7 AM. The majority of Torajans are Christians, but they have traditional architecture and extremely unique burial rituals and ceremonies that predate the arrival of missionaries and continue today. Also, (and what is important for us) everything is open for foreigners to visit.


A church



Traditional Tongkonan style

Tana Toraja is a very lush region. Rice fields and green vegetation abound. While on the bus dozing in and out I noticed that we are going up and up very windy small roads. There is quite some significant elevation here too. The early morning air is noticeably more cooler and fresher, Though having just come from the cement jungle that is Kuala Lumpur almost anywhere the air would be cooler and fresher.


A rice field

Piong Ikan (Fish in bamboo). A Torajan dish that is fish, (koi, carp) chicken or pork wrapped in a banana leaf with a spinach like vegetable and then inserted into a bamboo tube and roasted on a fire.

People make their base around the large town of Rantepao and spend the days in Tana Toraja exploring the numerous villages and visiting the funeral ceremonies. And like other tourist locals in Indonesia there is a plethora of guides who will gladly show you the sites and take you to ceremonies for a tidy sum. In Rentapao the guides hang around the lobbies of  hotels. The first guide we speak with, before even checking in, says, "you cannot visit the ceremonies by yourself", with shifty eyes, we know he is full of crap and the first thing we will try to do is visit places by ourselves.

Stay Tuned...

A little girl that should be in class and not posing for photos