Protected by the Gods?

Balinese women crossing a supposedly busy street on their way to the temple.

May the Gods be with them.

Around Ubud, Bali, November 2009.

Offerings to the dead: send flames onto the family

The Chinese do a lot of offerings to the deceased. These offerings are made by burning fake money notes, known as hell money but also paper versions of what the deceased enjoyed on Earth or what the ancestor would have loved to have. Some families burn paper houses, cars, credit cards, flight tickets to give to their dead relatives. The Chinese feel that these offerings reach the ghosts and help them live comfortably in their new world.

Sometimes they also burn 'themselves' as seen below to foster the continuing relation between the alive and the deceased.

Malacca, Malaysia, July 2009.

R.I.P the Torajan way

In Tana Toraja there are several methods of burial: the coffin is being (i) put into a cave, (ii) placed into a carved stone grave, (iii) hung on a cliff, (iv) placed into a house or (v) the deceased baby is being buried in a tree. The latter methods allows for further growth in the afterlife. Buried are some of the possessions the deceased may need in the afterlife.

The wealthy are often buried in a stone grave carved out of a rocky cliff. By visiting Tana Toraja people can often been seen hammering into such cliffs, often they have to do it for months depending on the size which can reach living room sizes.

Pictures above and below show hanging coffins. When a coffin is broken and the bones have to be moved, an animal (mostly a pig) must be slaughtered before been alowed to touch the bones.

The picture below is showing a mass grave with possessions of the less wealthy.

Wood-carved effigies, called tau tau, are usually placed in the cave looking out over the land.

A rante is a burial ground (shown below) where funeral ceremonies take place. During the ceremony, the dead person remains on a provisional house built for the occasion. The megaliths of this rante (in the village of Bori) have been here for at least 600 years. When a family wants to bring a megalith to be allowed to use a rante, at least 20 buffaloes have to be slaughtered.

Tana Toraja, South Sulawesi, May 2009.

Buffalo sacrifice Tana Toraja

The higher the status of a dead person, the more buffalo are slaughtered at a Torajan funeral. The ritualized Torajan way of slaughtering a buffalo may remind of an ancient but unequal fight between humans and animals. I know that most of us don't like to see such pictures but we somehow have to realize that modern society industrialized such processes, taking them away from our eyes. Anyway, we continue to eat meat...

Tana Toraja, South Sulawesi, May 2009.

No sudden death in Tana Toraja

It is often said that for Torajans, life is only a preparation to death. This is true, and untrue.

Torajan people have, or had, plenty of ceremonies also celebrating life, and especially fertility. Many of them were deemed not compatible with Christianity, and are no more carried out.

Ceremonies related to death were considered compatible with Christianity, and the Torajans still conduct very elaborate (and costly) funeral rites. Even if funeral rites according to the ‘old’ (animist) religion are much more expensive and time-consuming than a Christian, mostly Protestant funeral, they are still carried out by most families when a relative dies.

A person is not considered dead as long as the funeral rites have not been carried out. The person is only sick and referred to other people as sick. The sick person is kept in the house, food will be placed in front of the corpse, betel will be offered betel, and people will talk with the person.

The relatives will gather in the tongkonan to discuss the funeral. Should Torajan funeral rites be chosen, then it will be very costly. So much so that the funeral might have to wait a couple of years. Relatives and friends have to bring offerings in the form of pig and buffalo sacrifices, and feed and entertain large numbers of guests. Rice paddies or houses might have to be sold. Loans might have to be contracted.

Provisional buildings need to be built for the ceremony, pigs and buffaloes, food, coffee, palm wine to be bought. Once everything is ready, the sick person will be rewrapped in new cloths, and on the last day before the ceremony, the person will be put on the platform of the rice granary facing the tongkonan.

For the first reception day, the sick person will be put on the lakkean, on higher ground so she can watch the festivities given in her honor.

Hundreds, sometimes thousands of guests will then gather along family or relationship lines. After a gong is sounded, warriors will pick up the first group to lead them to the ceremonial ground dancing. Offerings are brought, buffaloes first, then pigs, followed by the rice wine carriers, men, and women (see reception blog). Once all offerings are thoroughly registered (for the family to know exactly what debts have been settled though the offerings and what new debts have emerged, and for the authorities to collect taxes on sacrificed animals, an unsuccessful way of trying to limit the slaughtering), the procession is led to the reception hall. Once the guests are seated, another procession starts, this time mourning relatives of the sick person, all wearing black, and bringing the guests betel, cigarettes, tea and coffee. Once the guests have eaten, they will leave the procession hall, to make place for the next procession. Two reception days may be necessary for a big funeral.

In between, pigs will have been slaughtered at the back of the provisional building, to feed the numerous guests (who themselves will have to bring food for the carriers of the pigs).

Unlike buffaloes, black pigs are more valuable than those of two colors. The pigs are killed with a small knife, their blood is recovered in bamboo pipes, the entrails taken apart for sausages. They are then grilled on the open fire, cut in pieces and distributed.

The slaughtering of the buffaloes will take place on the third or fourth day of the funeral. The buffaloes are standing, and their throat is cut with one sharp cut. Still on the middle of the ceremonial ground, their fur and skin is taken off, and will later be sold for the leather industry in Makassar or Surabaya.

For Tana Toraja's burial grounds follow me....

Tana Toraja, South Sulawesi, May 2009.

Drumming through the night

After the welcome ceremony the Asmat men gathered in front of the longhouse and started to drum. Drumming was ongoing as we left the festivity and was heard all through the night.

Beriten, Asmat, Papua, April 2009.

Asmat colors

Asmat colors are white, red, and black. White comes from mussel shells that have been burned and crushed. Red comes from mud found along river banks. After baking in fire, the mud is a deep rich red. Black used on carvings and canoes comes from charcoal.

Red applied around a man’s eyes imitates the eye feathers of an angry cockatoo which brings fear to the enemy. Welcome to Asmat...

Beriten, Asmat, April 2009.

Asmat welcome

Dugout canoe welcome in Beriten, Asmat.

Beriten, Asmat, Papua, April 2009.

Mourning, mutilation, spirits and Dani women

Funerals once were the most important Dani rite. They lasted several years, starting with mourning and the cremation of the deceased to drive the ghost from the living area. Elaborate rituals were held for important men and those killed in battle. The ghosts of these men were particularly powerful. Corpses of important Big Men were not cremated but mummified to be kept for supernatural reasons.

Mourning can be observed nearly everywhere. Women usually smear their faces and bodies with yellow clay or ashes to express grief for the lost relative.

One of the adjuncts to the cremation ceremony was the cutting off of a girl’s finger upper part. The fingers were tied off with string half an hour before the ax fell. Afterwards, the finger upper parts were left to dry, burned, and the ashes were buried in a special place.

This cruel practice of impressing the spirits is now prohibited but many middle-aged or older women can still be seen with missing finger parts and even cut-off earlaps once too many relatives had died.Living a life devoted to the spirits of the dead Dani, at the price of a handicap for daily life.

Baliem Valley, Papua, April 2009.