Torajan funeral in Sulawesi island (18 images)

Torajan culture – the funeral.
The Torajans believe that when people die, they remain with us and look after those left behind. In order to properly do so, they need a proper funeral, and a proper funeral involves sacrificing a buffalo so that it can escort the deceased Torajan back to heaven.Once they are buried they move them from the house to the place they call ‘the house with no smoke’, which is essentially a graveyard that’s part of the village. So, in a...
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Torajan culture – the funeral.
The Torajans believe that when people die, they remain with us and look after those left behind. In order to properly do so, they need a proper funeral, and a proper funeral involves sacrificing a buffalo so that it can escort the deceased Torajan back to heaven.Once they are buried they move them from the house to the place they call ‘the house with no smoke’, which is essentially a graveyard that’s part of the village. So, in a sense, the dead remain part of the community. They usually cut a chamber into a rock in the village and leave the body there to decompose properly. If they are high caste (noble) people, they will have a wooden effigy built for them and kept there Tao Tao.So, the funerals are incredibly graphic events. They don’t mind tourists visiting, as the high-status funerals last a long time and it is a case of the more visitors, the more prestigious. But you do need a strong stomach, as on the penultimate day of the ceremony the buffalo are sacrificed. At a big funeral for an important person, more than 30 buffalo might be killed. Each buffalo is worth thousands of dollars, so the cost of a funeral can be sky-high.
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