A funeral to die for

And a large number of pigs and buffaloes did indeed die for this one. I was in South Sulawesi's Toraja Land, and life is largely about the funerals there. They're very very big, a central part of the people's culture, and if you're a tourist in the area, you get taken along as a welcome extra guest.

The Torajans are animists, meaning everything is dictated by the needs of the ancestors' spirits. They watch over things, and they require a massive funeral ceremony with lots of  guests, and lots of pigs and buffaloes sacrificed to feed them. Except they're nominally Christians. In Indonesia everyone had to choose one of the five official one-God religions, and Torajans chose Christianity, as a result of past Dutch influence. (And they got to eat pork and drink alcohol too!)

They talk about the 'credit economy', whereby you need to spend half your life donating pigs or buffaloes to other people's funerals, building up credit. It's all recorded meticulously, and when it's your turn the favours are returned, and with a bit of luck your own funeral is big and grand enough that the spirits allow you into heaven.

Funerals take months to organise. During this time the deceased continue to 'live' in the family home, and are 'fed' and 'watered'. A whole temporary village is built to house the hundreds of guests who will return from all around the country and beyond. So much of the region's wealth is spent on funerals that the Government has been trying to discourage it for decades. But I've a feeling the spending has only been increasing with rising prosperity. And with eternity in paradise at stake..........

The treatment of the animals seems extremely cruel to our sheltered eyes. Hog-tied squealing pigs are everywhere, and I saw some being disembowelled while still alive. It's all done in a precisely defined ceremonial way though. When some of the pigs were squealing particularly loudly because of rain getting into their ears, a chap ran around providing them with cardboard 'umbrellas' to ease that particular suffering.

There were speeches, songs, musical performances, and lots of processions, often involving gifts from guests to family and vice versa. I spent a couple of hours there, and it was quite enthralling. The whole thing goes on for many days.

Here's a video of pigs being carted off for slaughter:

And here's a procession, I think of family members heading to the guests' pavilion to present some gifts:

Wanna see my slides? - I've been to Java too!

And what a trip it was. I went to Central Java, specifically Solo City, the Dieng Plateau, and Yogyakarta (Jogja), to fill in a missing link in my Indonesia travels.

There were sultans' palaces, bicycle tours of the padi fields, a gamelan foundry, bird markets and countless other market scenes. There were the ancient Hindu temples at Prambanan, volcanic bubbling lakes, brightly painted mosques galore, and joyous festivals, marches, and gatherings of all kinds.

There was a world record giant batik production event. There was my night ascent of the 2911m Mt Merapi volcano. There were happy crowds of weekend domestic tourists on the beach and elsewhere. And there was the 'Idul Adha' Muslim Day of Sacrifice festival, where I was welcomed warmly.

Most of all there were friendly souls everywhere. What a wonderful place. What wonderful people. We probably don't deserve such good neighbours

 

I'll write up a few of my adventures in more detail over the next few posts.