Huck Magazine:
In South Sulawesi, Indonesia, the Torajan people “live to die.” Mummified corpses, preserved with Formalin, are kept in the family home for years or even decades after death. Until a funeral – a multi-day event that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars with dozens of buffalo and hundreds of pigs being slaughtered – can be arranged, the lifeless are not dead. They are simply “To makula” – sick people.
For Torajans, the line between this life and the next is infinite and porous. After a funeral, when the dead have been helped along the way to “puya” (the afterlife), their corpses are interred in a cave. But every year, in August, there is Ma’Nene ritual, in which the bodies are brought out and re-clothed, their bones polished. Sometimes, the newly-freshened cadavers are even taken for a walk around the village.
When viewed through my “Western” eyes, The death rituals of this group of Indonesians seems grotesque. But after reading the story, maybe the way we treat the dead in the West is what is grotesque. Be sure to check out the photographer’s own page for more info and photos.
In the West, we’re expected to hire specialists to handle our dead, for substantial fees.
Yup. That sounds way more expensive then “a multi-day event that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars with dozens of buffalo and hundreds of pigs being slaughtered”.
I visited Tana Toraja almost 20 years ago … I had barely wandered into a village when a friendly local started talking to me and invited me to come and see a funeral for his grandmother. I ended up spending a full week with him and his family in a beautiful “Toraja house” while funeral festivities took place. It was a magical experience to be able to spend the time with such warm and friendly people. I didn’t see the mummy, but the body was in a sort of coffin, and it was carried around the village while the family members danced and sang and made a lot of noise. I was especially invited for that part as I was told that part of the funeral was to disorient the spirit so it would go on to the afterworld rather than hang around and haunt the living. Having a foreigner along helped confuse the spirit and encourage it to move along. The festivities included lots of music and dancing and the butchering of 30 buffalo and more pigs than I could count.
Are those my only choices? Gee, thanks.
Sounds like a remarkable event. You have my envy.
Obviously superstition, yet strangely compelling, but only because there are sheds—mere shreds—of truth to it.
It’s certainly grotesque how “funeral professionals”prey on the vulnerable by making them feel guilty if they don’t spend extravagantly on our dead loved ones. As if the plush coffin is required to show how much we loved them.
They’re talking about many people being commemorated for that kind of money, no? In the US they extort money from family one dead person at a time. And take up lots of real estate for no good reason.
More revered in death than in life! Sadly upside down!
Sounds like every Jewish or Christian funeral ceremony I’ve ever attended.
I guess. We slaughter fewer buffalo and pigs along the way. To each his own, I suppose.
You did it again! Every once in a while you say something I agree with! 😉
Dang it.
LOL!