I'll Be There Dreckly: Three Funerals and a Wedding

Rantepao, Sulawesi island, Indonesia (map)

In this blog: a mass buffalo sacrifice at a funeral, looking at cliff, cave and tree graves, and teaching English in a class

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Typically beautiful Tana Toraja countryside

Thanks to the road chaos I reported in the last blog, we didn't manage to make it to our destination of Rantepao in one day. Instead, at midnight the bus dumped us off in a suburb of the town of Palopo where we had no idea where we were, where we could stay, or how we could get around. It felt a bit hopeless. A group of teenagers gathered around curiously, and one of them got their older mate with a car who quoted us a ridiculous price for a lift to Rantepao. He wouldn't negotiate, we walked off. Outside a university, a few students mingled at the gates and we hoped they might speak a little English. Instead one pulled out his laptop and we had the slowest conversation ever using Google translate which amounted to nothing, so walked off again. A couple of them finally caught up on their scooters and with a new understanding kindly gave us a lift to a guesthouse nearby.

The next morning we still had little idea how to continue on, so walked along the road in the vain hope we might find something, when out of nowhere a share taxi pulled up and an old guy shouted 'RANTEPAO?' out the window. It all seemed legit, so we hopped in and were on the way. The van weaved up a steep road into the mountains, switchback after switchback and the scenery was stunning. This windy road was too much for a young guy who made the driver stop so he could vomit in the ditch. A couple of hours later the scenery changed as we reached a plateaux, and we knew we were in the area known as Tana Toraja.

Torajans have a unique identity in Indonesia, being an ethnic group that are of originally said to have come from Burma before settling in the mountains, and their life revolves around death. To them a funeral is viewed the same way as a wedding is in Western society, with elaborate plans, money saved for years, and lavish ceremonies involving hundreds of people over many days. This, along with a very unique style of architecture and a love for buffalo makes for a fascinating place to visit - the sort of place you might read about in National Geographic, with traditions which surprisingly continue seemingly mostly unaffected by tourism.

Torajan funeral

The funeral sacrifice

Surprisingly, Torajans have no objections to foreign tourists visiting their elaborate funeral ceremonies. Whilst it might seem odd to want to go to a funeral of someone you don't know it was said to be a real experience, so intrigued, we took up the offer of hiring a guide for the day - Yacob - and went along. The three of us rode scooters half an hour south of town, passing through paddy fields and down country lanes, before turning into an anonymous looking farm track. We arrived at a sort of courtyard surrounded by beautifully made wooden rice barns, and were just in time for the days events - the traditional sacrifice of buffalo. I was a little hesitant about what this would be like, and rightly so it transpired. I've decided to leave out the more gory details of what I saw, but needless to say it's not pretty reading so feel free to skip to the next section. You've been warned!

Sacrificing buffalo is believed by the Torajans to help carry the spirit into the afterlife, and the number sacrificed depends on the deceased persons position in society - poor people will have just a few, rich people up to two hundred (plus maybe a few pigs, dogs and chickens), but in this case they had four pigs, and eleven buffalo, the meat of which is divided amongst everyone in the area, almost like a party bag at a child's birthday.

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When we arrived the pigs had already been killed, and they lay on the dirt floor with guys burning off their hair with blowtorches. It was the first time I'd seen that, but knew it was fairly normal practice so no problem. Buffalo, specifically water buffalo native to South Asia, were gradually being led into the courtyard and Yacob suggested we go to one of the specially built viewing areas 'as it can get messy', so there we went, along with about fifteen other Westerners including some particularly rude and irritating older French people.

A slaughterman came out and not much happened for a few minutes. Locals spoke on the PA and it was decided that all of them would be killed. Suddenly the crowd gasped - the first buffalo had had it's throat slit and was staggering around with blood pouring out everywhere, and did so for nearly a minute before it collapsed, rolled about and wriggled for another couple of minutes before finally dying. I was totally and utterly shocked, and stood motionless with my shoulders tensed.

Now, I'm gonna sound like a mad animal rights activist here, which I'm most certainly not, but I am human and feel a bit of empathy for things. I have no objection to eating other animals, it's the natural food chain and has been going on forever. I've visited a number of slaughterhouses at home before and understand the process, I've seen many dead cattle, carcasses hanging, and seen chickens killed but never anything like this sacrifice. It was absolutely and completely brutal, barbaric even, the most cruel thing I've seen in my life. Animals should either be alive or dead, not suffering in a way like this - Indonesian law even says that but is flouted cause it's 'tradition'. If you're going to kill something, do it swiftly and properly, and stun if first if required.

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I watched two more being killed, and this time just felt nothing but numbness. A few tourists had left. The fourth kill made me angry since the guy did such a poor job at the kill and it suffered even more; I was beginning to comprehend what was going on walked away briefly to calm myself down. The seventh buffalo collapsed for a while after having it's throat slit, then shockingly a couple of minutes later stood back up and wobbled around, still alive. The crowd let out a roar of delight as if watching a boxing match. I was infuriated at the slaughterman for doing a terrible job, but most of all I was angry beyond belief at the crowd of locals who took such it's glee in it's suffering. Amongst the noise I found myself shouting 'this is TOTALLY messed up' before walking off back to the motorbike, where I waited a few minutes then drove off to the main road.

Cars and motorbikes reeled out after a half an hour or so, and feeling calmer I went back to find Rene. They were now butchering the animals on the dirt floor, a huge crowd of blood-covered men with machetes. This bit I could cope with as it was just butchery, though far from hygienic with meat, guts and dung all left contaminating each other. Rene was where I left him and said he was close to leaving but just held it together. Was it just me being soft I thought? I emailed a friend that night who works in an abettor just to get her thoughts - she replied with the honest opinion that it was was wrong, cruel and shocking, and most people in their abettor would be feel the same. An event I will never forget.

Traditional Torajan village our guide Yacob took us to, wher the locals hadn't
been corrupted by tourist money

Exploring

We headed off by scooter, still feeling a little shocked but trying to put it behind us even if the theme of death still continued. The countryside was beautiful, more rice fields with tree covered hills between and Yacob led us to a sight called the baby graves. Believe it or not, Torajan tradition dictates that if a baby dies it is buried in a tree. Certain trees are nominated, and specialists chisel their way into the tree to provide a recess where the bodies are placed wrapped in cotton in the foetal position, after which the opening is then hidden by stringy bits of palm tree. It was fascinating to learn, and the practice still continues today apparently.

Equally unique is the way adults are buried, which depends again on their wealth and position in society. A couple of miles away we were led to a cliff face where there were a number of wooden doors in the rock, which it transpired were also graves - those that can afford it have a coffin sized opening chiselled into the rock where they are laid to rest. In some cases though, the whole family is placed in a specially built concrete vault, and in past times were just left in coffins on the floors of caves. Fascinating, but more than enough death for one day.

After the English class I 'taught' (the v's aren't a swear sign in Asia by the way)

Teaching

I spent two half-days in Toraja sat in sweaty noisy Internet cafés, designing a poster and tickets for the young farmers ball I have a connection with at home, and during this time Rene went exploring the area and met Gustine; a very sweet and innocent 21 year old local girl whilst walking up to a viewpoint. She's studying English at the local university, but also teaches an English class to young kids and after they got chatting she asked if Rene would teach one day. He agreed to it, only on that day to come down with shingles (which cleared up in just a few days) so I willingly took the reins instead.

Gustine picked me up at the hotel on her scooter then made me do the driving to her family home where she teaches the class. It was a pretty basic little cottage in a poor neighbourhood in the outskirts, and as we rounded the corner the sound of 'yaaaaaaayyy' filled the air from a string of enthusiastic young kids running into the house. I had no ideas for what I was going to do, nor did Gustine really so I made it up as I went along with the help of a simple text book. I pointed at objects or colours in the room and asked them to say the English name, I said words and asked them to spell them, I pulled faces and asked them to describe my mood - these sorts of things. There was about fifteen kids, all around 7-10 years I guess and some were pretty darn good. They were a happy smiley bunch and really enthusiastic to learn. Gustine told me she teaches them six days a week for an hour, and with only a couple of parents actually chipping in any money essentially does it for free which I thought was very kind hearted of her.

Next: A cattle market, buffalo fighting, a wedding and more