Death in Toraja

We took a sleeper bus for nine hours up to the Toraja region. I struggled to sleep as usual - mental note (again!) to stop taking night buses!

The Toraja region is famous for their funeral ceremonies and tombs. July and August is the key period for large scale celebrations for people that have died over the previous year. Really grand ceremonies are held and they sacrifice pigs and waterbuffalo as they believe the animal spirits follow the deceased into the after life. 

We visited Kete Kesu village with lots of traditional houses with lines of buffalo horns from sacrifices stacked up at the front and lots of tombs hanging from cliffs. It was really interesting and a little creepy at the same time. We could see scores of human skulls lined up on wooden coffins. A truly breath taking scene. It just created so many questions in my mind, wanting to understand this different culture. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Olive was really cool about it all as well which really added to the experience. 

For the next couple of days we got Yusuf to drive us around the region. We started by visiting the weekly Pasar Bolu market where water buffalo and pigs are sold mainly for sacrifices. The albino buffalo can sell for up to 400 million IDR (£20k) which is astonishing. Especially when you consider that, depending on your position in society, you could have up to 100 buffalo sacrificed. Mind boggling amounts of money. It can take five years for some families to save up for a ceremony for the deceased, during which time the deceased stays in the family home and is treated as part of the family. 

We went to Bori kalimbuang grave tombs. If a new born baby dies, they are wrapped up and placed in trees which allows them to grow with the tree.

We were lucky enough to join a funeral ceremony in Bori. Olive and me joined a circle of people chanting and swinging our arms surrounding a coffin. Then a group of young men carried the coffin for 3 km to the burial site, wrestling with the coffin as they walked and throwing mud at each other. It was not only a somber affair - there was lots of laughter and fun as well which was interesting. The burial site was within natural boulders amongst rice terraces. 

We also looked round some more tombs at Lo ko Mata and Pana Tomb. 

We slept in a traditional house in Batutumonga with lovely views down on the valleys. 

We asked Yusuf the next day if there were any more funeral ceremonies but he was certain there weren’t as it was Saturday. But as we drove along we saw one and joined in again. The local communities were just so welcoming. It was the first day of the celebrations and we got to watch buffalo fighting. Half way through everyone stopped and massive bins of food were opened up and fished out to everyone in sight including us, washed down with some palm tree wine. 

After all that excitement the planned tourist trail stops at another local village at Palawa and watching weaving in Sangkombong seemed a little anti-climatic. But we took them as an opportunity to pause and soak up the atmosphere over a sprite and chat and play games with the locals. 

We finished off our tour with Yusuf by looking at the views from Lolai and Yusuf helped us find a homestay to sleep at. 

We are weighing up spending more time around the Toraja region or heading to the beaches down south in Bira. It’s such a lovely climate up here and just so interesting we might stick around here.