Paul and I spent the better part of last week with the Toraja tribe in Sulawesi. It was definitely an interesting encounter that left both or us doing some processing. The Torajans believe the funeral is the most important ceremony a person has and go to great lengths to plan four-day funerals that hundreds of people attend. It can take years to get up the money and make the preparations and during that time, the dead person stays at home in a big box with all of their things (clothes,tools,etc.). At the time of the funeral, the box is moved to a cave or hung on the side of a cliff or put in a special house. Lots of Buffalo and pigs are slaughtered to go with the dead person. These are eaten by the family who come to the funeral for the most part. Once the box is moved to its final spot, it begins to rot in the tropical climate exposing the dead person . We were able to attend a funeral and a couple grave sites. Paul will describe what we saw.
Really we saw two separate things. The first was The funeral of police major Raham Kumbong and the second was a Torajan cemetery. Police major Kumbong's funeral was billed as a proper Christian affair and day one started as such. What happened after the hymns stopped and the coffin was hoisted on to the elevated platform above the bull fighting area was enough to send even the most devout Christian onto the margins of the festival grounds. Without even a change in rhythm the program switched from amazing grace and how great art thou to an animistic shaman shouting verses of ancient language. All of his couplets started with a scream that approximated the noise Aurthur Fonzarelli would make after slamming his hand in a car door. "And then it came to pass" translates as "ayaaaaayh" screamed in ancient Torajan.
After thirty minutes of the man screaming at the start of every other sentence, he finally stopped. Some of the other men started carrying bamboo stick tied squealing hogs on to the festival grounds while the family and friends of the deceased, in their nicest Sunday go to meeting clothes, promonaded across those same grounds and into the family sitting area. Around 25 hogs were assembled by the time the final mourner reached the seating area to take tea and cake while the names of those who had donated each hog was read.
After the donor's name was announced, his initials were spray painted onto the hog and it was carried to a different area between the coffin platform and the family area. In short order several groups of men had all 25 hogs killed and butchered right there on the ground. Eight hogs at a time were stabbed thru the heart, bleed into a bamboo tube, de-haired by blow torch(Unlike the market pigs), gutted, and dismembered while Major Kumbong's kith and kin chatted over an afternoon snack.
After the hog slaughter, everyone made a big circle and the bull fighting began. Indonesian bull fights are just that, bull on bull til one turns tail and runs. Jen and I stuck toward the back because there were no barriers between the people and the bulls. Even with with this modicum of caution, we got close enough to one of the winners to get an autograph. We were never in danger of joining police major Kumbong and his 25 hogs in the afterlife, but I am glad we were not any closer to that bull either. I have had pork and I have seen card playing and gambling at a number of Christian funerals. Betting on bull fights and hog slaughter at one was new to me. We did not come back for days two thru four, but I will never forget day one of police major Raham Kumbong's final going away party.
Torajan cemetaries are truly creepy places. They are located on cliffsides and it is all the better if the cliff has a cave in it. Some folks carve their own family tunnels into the cliffs that don't have caves and other families construct hanging wooden burial arks to hang from the cliff face. At each burial site there is also a spot where people whose families have managed to slaughter 24 bulls at their relative's funeral can place a life size effigy of them.
If a family has a tunnel, the whole burial thing is like a moseleum and not that weird other than the open door, communal burials, and exposed bones. The hanging graves are more creepy because they also have many generations of dead guys in each one and they lose structural integrity as years pass. Piles of bones and an errant skull or two beneath the older ones does not seem to cause any concern for the living. We were at a site during a hard rain and really had to give the hanging graves a wide birth. Getting dripped on with dead guy water is one of the grossest things I can imagine.
That is except for a cave full of coffins and bones that gets played off as a tourist attraction. The cave burial site we visited was a natural limestone cave chock full of bones coffins and offerings. A guide leads you via the light a Coleman lantern into the cave. Here and there you notice groups of skulls on the natural ledges of the first few chambers, but it is not until you get a hundred yards or So back into the cave when the piles of coffins and bones really start dominating the scene. Newer coffins are just haphazardly piled onto older ones and the bones of those whose coffins have desintegrated. Floor to ceiling disorganized piles of bones and boxes. The latest date i saw on a coffin was a fifty four year old who died in 2010. We cut the cave tour a little short, but on the way out I did stop to get a photo of me with my face behind three skulls that were strategicly placed for tourists to get the requsite shot of a visit to the cave. Like getting a photo of me and Mickey at Disneyland, it seemed like I kinda had to. Our guide mentioned that the Torajans started using formaldehyde just 30 years ago. I bet that is going to change things.
Lastly, I have to mention the baby trees. If a Torajan child dies before cutting teeth, the body is placed in a special bag and nailed to a tree in his or her village that is designated for baby burial purposes. The tree has sap that is used to make baby food and the bark of the tree eventually grows over the bag and envelops the baby. The baby bag is nailed to the tree facing his or her house. The tree we visited had around eight or nine bags hanging on it.
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