It is warm and we are squeezed next to each other. The dust on the street swirls up when the public transport car we just stopped on the street heads off to the funeral ceremony (Rambu Solo), an integral part of the Toraja culture we visited today. After we experienced a colourful wedding some days ago we are very curious to see how locals deal with the topic of death. After a while on the bumpy road the driver announces it’s the end of our journey and we continue walking to our guide’s house. It is normal here that a guide accompanies external visitors to the ceremony in order to explain the rituals and tell the do’s (bring a present to show respect and dress in dark colours) and the don’ts.
We walk together to the funeral site where the locals shake our hands and welcome us with a warm smile. They explain that a funeral over here last several days, which includes a night where the family sings songs together and celebrates the last day with the sick person, buffalo fights, slaughtering of buffalos and pigs and the transportation of the coffin to a grave which is carved in a rock. When a person dies, he or she is considered as sick and the close family still brings food, drinks and cigarettes to the person. Only when a funeral is held a person is truly dead, gets buried and departs to the ‘land of the souls’. This can take up to several years as a funeral is a very costly ceremony; the whole village gets invited, it takes a long time to cave the grave, and 6-100 buffalos need to be bought according to the status of the dead person. Sometimes even guesthouses are built especially for this occasion to host family from far away!
Most of the family members are dressed in white traditional gowns and walk behind each other to a field. We join in and pass two buffalos grazing relaxed. A strange feeling arises in us as we know what will happen in some minutes. One man steps forward and speaks a prayer. Everybody is silent and listens to his words. Meanwhile, some men with long knives appear behind us with the two animals on a leash. The killing happens quickly and was luckily less bloody than we expected. The meat of the two buffalos gets divided between the participants and the horns are collected as a decoration for the Tongkonan, the traditional houses. The more horns in front of a building, the higher the families and the dead person’s status.
After this, the family invites us home for a cup of coffee and a traditional and very delicious lunch – Indonesian style, which means sitting on the floor level of the smaller Tongkonan, used for storing rice, and eating with our hands. Some family members join us and after some small talk they present their huge and muscular buffalos which are going to fight each other in the coming days.
Again, this day gave us a great insight into the unique Toraja culture. Many of us got out of their comfort zone and were open to experience a totally different perspective on life and death.
We now totally agree… “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore” (Andre Gide).
Written by: Lena
