Living With The Dead

After the funeral Martin, my guide for the next two days, and I started to drive back to Rantepao, where most traveller stay. The landscape is just absolutely stunning. Little pockets of rice fields have been carved out of the forest. On all sides large limestone cliffs reach up and everywhere you can see farmers bringing in the second harvest of the year.

We stopped for about an hour in Kete Kesu, a traditional Torajan village. Here many people still live in the traditional houses with their distinct roofs. The ancestors of the Torajan people came from the north over the sea and they started to build their houses to resemble the ships they sailed on.

Everywhere you look there are graves. Some are over 100 years old. Some were being built right then by hollowing out rocks. Following a little path past the village we walked to a huge limestone rock. There are hanging graves on the side of the cliff. Some have fallen down and will remain so until there is another ceremony, where only two or three buffaloes are being sacrificed. There are skulls and bones everywhere.

Martin then invited me into his home for a traditional Torajan meal called Papilong. First we bought a live chicken on the market in Rantepao. At his house we cut down a bamboo pole and carried it back. Then Martin cut three segments off. These were filled with chicken, vegetables, herbs and coconut and then sealed with palm leaves. Then we put them directly in the fire, turning them once in a while. The meal is finished when you can’t see any more liquid bubbling out of the bamboo.

Being invited into an Indonesian home can be quite an awkward situation sometimes. You might have been a customer before, but suddenly your status changes and you then are a guest. You’re not expected to lift a finger and everything gets very formal. Not so with Martin, which might have something to do with his two children. They were very shy at the beginning, but after a while they got used to me and were playing pranks and telling me stories, of which I didn’t understand a thing. I’m sure they found this strange bule (Indonesian for foreigner) sitting in their living room very amusing.

While we waited for the meal to finish Martin introduced me to the grandmother of his wife. She died about a year ago and lies in the house of his in-laws. The funeral will be this December. In the only other room in the house three kids were watching TV. This made me fully realize that the Torajans really do live with their dead.

The meal was absolutely delicious…

You can find more photos from Tana Toraja here.

Tags: Funeral, Sulawesi, Tana Toraja, Indonesia