#toraja

Here is the cover of Alukta's first album "Merok" drawn by me and finally published! :)

The first time Paul ever visited Toraja, he asked Agus if it was unusual for a family to keep a dead relative in the home. Agus laughed at the question. “When I was a child, we had my grandfather in the home for seven years. My brother and I, we slept with him in the same bed. In the morning we put his clothes on and stood him against the wall. At night he came back to bed.”

Paul describes death in Toraja, as he’s witnessed it, not as a “hard border,” an impenetrable wall between the living and the dead, but a border that can be transgressed. According to their animistic belief system, there is also no barrier between the human and nonhuman aspects of the natural world: animals, mountains, and even the dead. Speaking to your grandfather’s corpse is a way to build a connection to the person’s spirit.

Certainly, I would not be appalled or gasp aloud by anything any culture practiced! I've heard it all - funerary cannibalism, sacrifices, mummification - what could possibly shock me?

Welp

I got as far as page 56 before I was absolutely repulsed by a culture's death ritual, and I am now working through my feelings on that and trying to further expand my cultural understanding. I admit it though, I am not so enlightened as I thought. I got the heebie jeebies

Basic explanation of Rambu Solo; It’s a ritual held by the families of the dead in Toraja. The people of Toraja believes that there is life beyond death and that the dead are simply people who are alive but are asleep. For their spirits to be able to pass into the afterlife, they have to go through the Rambu Solo ceremony. The ceremony is big and expensive and festive with lots of people and animal sacrifice. Because it’s so expensive, some people couldn’t afford it and they can’t bury the body yet without the ritual so they keep the body in the family’s house and the dead is deemed “sick” and they’re treated as such; the family gives them food, drinks, their favourite things, etc. 

Anyway, back to Rambu Solo. The celebration goes as follow; It's a mix of different emotions but one thing certain; it's loud. It's when the family experiences true grief as it was the time to finally let the spirit travel to the afterlife, it's also a happy occassion in some cases. The casket is carried by the male family members and shaken while they walk around to wake the body for their journey.

Then there were the animal sacrifices with pigs and mainly buffalos. These animals can cost up to billions of rupiahs depending on circumstances (which is like $300.000) and are believed to be the ones to accompany the spirit in their journey to heaven. The sacrifice is done in the middle of the audience where a live buffalo is tied to a post and its neck is stabbed and slitted, and then onto another buffalo and another and another as nearly every family members will bring a buffalo.

Now before you go on a rant saying how it's "animal abuse" or "pointless animal death", the buffalo isn't just thrown away, in fact, the meat is equally shared to everyone attending no matter if you're long distance family or just complete strangers, you will get parts of the meat to cook and eat. Same with the pigs but they just feed you on the spot and they make sure there's not a scrap left behind

It may look pointless or otherwise cruel from an outsider's perspective, but it's an ancient tradition of respecting the dead and remembering the family. Just because something looks weird or doesn't fit in your Western perspective and standards for some countries, it doesn't change the fact that it's a tradition that these people have the rights to do without being judged by someone who's never even been there