HKFP Lens: Indonesia’s Toraja, the land celebrating the living dead – Part 2

Published
2024/07/14 11:00 (CST)

By Ayesha Sitara

Indonesia’s Torajan hill tribe is known for its animistic funeral rites, that involve caring for the dead at home – sometimes for years after they dieduntil a buffalo has been sacrificed. Click here for Part 1.

💡Note: This gallery contains graphic images of human remains and animal slaughter.

Torajans and tourists attend the funeral service to honour a dead person from an elite class in Tana Toraja. The festivities here are on a much grander scale and more extravagant. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.

Torajans practice a class based society and so funerals of the richer noblemen are more extravagant to mark their status. Their graves are decorated with statues in their image, knows as tau taus, and the most elite noblemen who have sacrificed more than 23 buffalos have monoliths erected in their honour.

Tau taus in front of graves of elite persons in Tana Toraja. These are wooden effigies sculpted to resemble the dead person and placed outside their family gravesites. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.

The dead are never forgotten and continue to be attended to through a unique ritual called Ma’nene. After the yearly harvest, whole families and villages help to exhume the dead bodies and dry them out in the sun for a few days to a week.

Tau taus hold their hands in supplication outside a gravesite in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.

The dead are then carefully and affectionately cleaned, given new clothes, their hair is combed, and they are bestowed with jewellery, toys, musical instruments and other such items.

Some bodies are even erected onto bamboo poles and families gather to take group photos, just like any joyful occasion such as a birthday party or wedding ceremony.

Traditonal singing and dancing at a funeral service just before a few buffaloes are sacrificed for an elite class person in Tana Toraja. When 23 buffaloes are sacrificed the dead person is honoured with a specially erected monolith. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.

The Ma’nene ritual is also celebrated with animal sacrifice, feasting and drinking locally brewed liquor in a way that is unique to Torajans, who believe that loving and caring for their dead family members does not stop with life on this earth.

Bullfighting is an essential ritual at a funeral in Tana Toraja. Special stands are erected for the occasion and the crowds can get happily boisterous during the many bouts. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
Cockfighting is also part of the funeral rituals in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
More cockfighting in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
A man carries harvested rice in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
Post harvest, dead corpses of ancestors are exhumed from their graves or crypts each year for the Ma’nene ritual, which means “care of ancestors” in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
The Ma’ nene ritual in Tana Toraja starts with a prayer service after which the dead ancestors are taken out of their coffins and dried out in the sun for a few days. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
Torajans have an enduring and uninterrupted love for their ancestors. Whilst death and decomposed corpses may feel strange to many other cultures, Torajans feel no fear nor discomfort because of this overwhelming love. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
A dead relative’s corpse is gently brushed clean and hair combed during a Ma’nene festival in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
The legs of a dead relative are cleaned during a Ma’nene festival in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
A dead relative’s corpse post exhuming from the grave is cleaned, tied to a bamboo pole and fresh clothes are adorned during a Ma’nene ritual in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
A woman puts the ring back onto the finger after cleaning the corpse during a Ma’nene festival in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
A child corpse is tucked back into her coffin with new clothes and additional gifts during a Ma’nene festival in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
A girl says one last goodbye to her relative before the coffin is resealed and put away in the crypt until the next Ma’nene ritual in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
Granddaughter and granny (tied to a bamboo pole) take family photos before granny returns to her coffin during a Ma’nene ritual in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
A family takes photos with their dead ancestors before they return to their coffins during a Ma’nene ritual in Tana Toraja. It is fairly common to take such photos for memory just like other cultures do so at weddings, graduations, birthday parties and such like. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
Returning the dead corpse to the coffin after it has been cleaned and wrapped in a new sarong at a Ma’nene festival in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
The dead wife tied to a bamboo pole watches her husband’s coffin resealed during a Ma’nene ritual in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
A hillside boulder serves as the gravesite of a single Torajan family in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
In the past Torajans hung coffins from cliffs. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
Torajans also placed coffins inside natural caves. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
Tau taus on the exterior of a hillside grave in Tana Toraja. In ancient times the effigies were made with simple wood without much colour but in modern times the effigies have become strikingly similar to the dead person. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.
The corpse of a dead relative placed inside the coffin along with his ID card and some money is buried until the next Ma’nene ritual. The cycle of life and death never stops in Tana Toraja. Photo: Ayesha Sitara.

Ayesha Sitara is a documentary photographer based in Hong Kong. She has published work in Gestalten, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The Hindu, HarpersCollins, Asia Times, SCMP and Wall to Wall Media UK (Documentaries) to name a few. She received honourable mention at the 19th Pollux Awards and her photos were exhibited at Fotonostrum Gallery in Barcelona. She is a member of Cathay Camera Club in Hong Kong and winner of the annual exhibition in 2022.

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