Travel in Indonesia: fascinating Tana Toraja culture of Central Sulawesi

The house type is always elevated off the ground but in some villages the front of yet longer and broader roof is supported by a massive pillar ever more so giving the house the appearance of a ship.

The interior of the house is quite simple, consisting usually of three rooms – a living area, kitchen and sleeping quarters. As there is no chimney soot of the large fire pit cooking area covers the beams and rafters.

Every house, typically on the front facade but often also on the side of the house, adorn horns of buffalos. The family status is usually shown by the number of horns mounting the house, the more there are the higher the merit and status for the family, attesting to many sacrifices, feasts and ceremonies performed by the family to which many guests have been invited.

In the ancient times, the old, "adat" ceremonies and animistic rites, practiced by the Toraja until the arrival of Christian missionaries, not only buffaloes were sacrificed but people as well. As in many other cultures of the Indonesian archipelago, from Sumatra to Timor, headhunting was part of animistic practices. Its existence shows relationship to headhunting practices of ancient cultures of South and Southeast Asia, further substantiating the roots of origin of the island cultures, whether of Indonesian or Philippine archipelago. Although buffalo and pig sacrifices have replaced human heads and the animistic religion has for the most part been diluted, reasonably strong adat practice still continues to this day and is practiced by about 25% of the Toraja people. Much of the traditional animistic practices take place during the funeral ceremonies called the Feast of the Dead. The practice is sustained by the Toraja inherent belief in afterlife, called Puya, or the Land of the Dead, where everyone is believed will live under the same conditions as he or she did on earth, a belief that spurs every Torajan to attain as much wealth as possible during his lifetime. Another belief of note is that the Toraja people believe the souls of animals will follow their masters into heaven, thus the buffalo sacrifice is in a way not perceived as taking of life as such but rather as an act which is only a temporary state of parting between man and beast and the two will reunite once again at death.

Most Toraja people are Christians, both Catholics and Protestants, and the church spires dot the horizon of the villages. Only about ten percent are Muslim, and in fact Muslim religion dominates the coastal areas as well as many deep valleys surrounding the Toraja region as such. All in all Toraja continue to practice highly ritualistic religious ceremonies including the rites of fertility, marriage, birth and death.​

The Torajans believe that when a person dies, the soul leaves the body but remains restless until the burial ritual has been completed. Often a time much of family's wealth can be spent on staging the finest, most elaborate funeral they can afford, a strange blending of solemnity and celebration. Today the Toraja may bury their dead in the ground but the traditional burial was by placing the body in a casket that was taken into a small structure shaped like their house before being moved to its final resting place inside a cliff-side grave. The caskets were inserted inside cave-like chambers although often left to protrude on specially constructed balconies high above the valley floor. As over time many caskets fell, the ground below is littered with bones and skulls. On the balconies are displayed "tau-tau", the wooden effigies of the deceased, typically set in rows as puppets they stand gazing over the countryside.

There is definitely more to Indonesia than Bali and visiting Sulawesi and Torajaland should not be missed. On your next trip to Bali or elsewhere in Indonesia include Sulawesi in your itinerary!