ravelling along the Trans Sulawesi highway from Makassar, the small town of Parepare offers a final view of the coast before heading inland to Tana Toraja. Just past Parepare, the road starts to climb and wend its way along the overlapping foothills of the mountain chain.
Beautiful picture postcard views spread across the Bambapuang Mountains, which form the gateway to Tana Toraja. Believed to be the place in which South Sulawesi civilisation started, these mountains have a special place in the hearts of the people of Toraja.

With it’s cool climate, the area offers comfortable places in which to spend time. It is said that Toraja was given its name by the Bugis people: toriaja means, “People who reside in the mountains,” and Tana Toraja does indeed lie in a mountain range. Although it is located in the middle of the island of Sulawesi, it is actually a part of the province of South Sulawesi, and Tana Toraja’s 450,000 inhabitants are mostly Christian.

As soon as we enter the Tana Toraja area, traditional houses with roofs shaped like upside-down boats (known as tongkonan) dominate the landscape. The village of Kete’ Kesu is a perfect place in which to explore the life of a traditional village and tongkonan form neat rows facing each other.

Every village usually contains storage space for food, a graveyard complex, a rante (an expanse of land where rituals are carried out), fields and areas of bamboo forest. In Kete’ Kesu, there is also a meadow with a pond where farm animals, such as water buffaloes and pigs, mill around.

Many of the tongkonan in Kete’ Kesu are very old and some of these wooden buildings date back hundreds of years. Tongkonan generally face north, the direction believed to be where their ancestors came from. As soon as they landed, the legend goes, the ancestors turned their boats over in order to use them as shelters. Thus, to this day, traditional houses in Tana Toraja have roofs shaped like upside-down boats (although a rival theory insists that the roof design represents the horns of a water buffalo, a cult animal in the community’s social system).

Traditionally, tongkonan were only built by members of the royal family. On the front pillars of these dwellings, dozens of water buffalo horns are displayed as ornaments; symbols of the occupants’ social status. These sharp horns were taken from buffaloes sacrificed at traditional celebrations, and - seeing as buffaloes are expensive - it is no surprise to see that few people are able to decorate their homes this way. In front of each house, a huge rice storage container sits on four stilts.

Heading deeper into the village, I come across a graveyard sitting atop a cliff face. There are ladders for visitors who want to inspect the place of interment more closely and human bones are scattered in wooden sarcophaguses, cracked by age. It is claimed that this graveyard is over 700 years old.

Not all traditional villages in Tana Toraja are as replete with cultural features as Kete’ Kesu, however if you want to go for village hopping, then Palawa, Bori Parinding, Buntu Pune and Rante Karassik are well worth a look. These villages are national cultural assets that should be preserved, and some have even been put forward to UNESCO to be included in the organisation’s elite list of World Heritage Sites.

The graves in the cliffs are scattered in many places and this method of burial is indeed typical of Tana Toraja. My personal favourite burial complexes that I visited on my trip were the Batutumonga and Lokomata, which are located in the northern mountains of Rantepao. Along the way, I found plantations producing the famous Toraja Coffee, an exquisite coffee variety that has been exported all over the planet.

A magical panorama enthralled my eyes as I arrived at one of these burial complexes. Corpses were set in the 10 by 20 metre holes that had been hewn into the rock. One huge rock usually contains several of these holes functioning as doorways, and one hole may contain several corpses.

Why do the locals build graves in a place so difficult to access? According to the traditional beliefs of the people of Tana Toraja (Aluk To Dolo), a grave does not only contain a body, but also things belonging to the deceased which will be needed in the next world. In order to deter theft, they put their graves in places that are difficult to access; you need a ladder to climb it. Sometimes the door to the grave is cemented or locked shut, and will only be opened when there is a new corpse to put in. In graveyards whose rocks cannot provide anymore holes, corpses are put into hanging wooden caskets. Making graves in these tough rocks is an arduous task and the process usually take many years.

Sitting on the flank of Sesean Mountain, Batutumonga and Lokomata are far from the hustle and bustle of the settlements. The atmosphere is one of respectful quiet. The areas are surrounded by green and yellow fields with the Tana Toraja highlands shimmer majestically in the distance. In fact, Batutumonga and Lokomata seem more like tranquil tourist areas than elaborate burial complexes in which families mourn their departed.

Cliff graves can also be found in Lemo (local terms for “orange fruit”). Lemo’s name derives from its creases and pits, which resemble those found on the peel of an orange. A number of unique tau tau, or statues representing the dead, sit on balconies on the front of the cliff, which itself soars dozens of metres upward. Originally, these statues were only intended to show the gender of the dead, however over time they have been increasingly carved by skilful hands in order to more closely resemble the deceased’s real appearances.

In accordance with the culture of Toraja, in which the dead are accorded the same respect as the living, the wood used to make these statues is chosen carefully to reflect the dead’s social status. The most expensive and prestigious wood used is kayu nangka (jack fruit wood).

The corpses of babies are treated differently though. It may surprise you to learn that babies who die before they grow teeth are placed inside the trunk of a tree. People believe that these infants are too small to ride a buffalo on their way to the spirit world and so, by being buried inside a tarra tree, they will grow together with the tree until a certain age (allegedly 16 years), and only then will they be given a blessing in a special ceremony. These outlandish tree burials can be seen in places such as Kambira.

Because burial ceremonies are expensive and elaborate, not all the dead are buried immediately. Families need time to gather sacrificial animals, invite relatives living elsewhere, and, of course, save enough money for the many expenses incurred. Only when the preparations are completed can the Rambu Solo ritual starts, which is, in essence, a huge party for the dead. Copious amounts of food and drink and expensive, fattened water buffaloes are slaughtered in this ceremony. 

Rambu Solo is the most splendid ceremony in all of Tana Toraja. It’s worth noting that burial parties like this are also found in Bali, Sumba and other places in Indonesia which shares similar roots and beliefs: the Austronesian animism, which is influenced by Hinduism.

The faint of hearts would do well to avoid the Rambu Solo ceremony as unsuspecting tourists often faint upon witnessing the head of a buffalo suddenly being cut off without a moment’s notice. Blood pours freely and sometimes a headless buffalo would still thrash about, splattering blood all over the place in its wake. When this happens, the butcher would promptly hack the buffalo’s legs off. For many people, including myself, it is a rather horrific and traumatic sight.

Not all of Tana Toraja’s rituals touch on the dead and blood however. The life ceremony known as Rambu Tuka (meaning the rising sun or smoke going upwards; Rambu Solo means the setting sun or smoke drifting downwards) is also an integral part of the culture.

Moreover, fascinating thanksgiving ceremonies known as Ma’ Bua’, Meroek or Mangrara Banua Sura’ are held during the opening or renovation of traditional houses. Unfortunately these ceremonies are rare, perhaps happening only once every 50 or 60 years.

Tana Toraja is not the only area of Indonesia that glorifies the water buffalo. In Minangkabau, for example, traditional houses are adorned with their horns. What sets the Tana Toraja water buffaloes different is their sheer number and variety. In a tedong (water buffalo) market, I found a buffalo whose horns point downwards. There were also some that were black-haired like banteng (a type of wild bull), and still others were black-and-white haired. The latter, called tedong bonga, are the locals’ favourites. However, the strangest ones are those with horns that point in different directions: the left upwards and the right downwards.

The stranger the animal, the more expensive it is. If an ordinary tedong costs only IDR 4 million, a tedong bonga, which is often referred to as an albino water buffalo, can cost the same price as a new Honda Jazz car!

In contrast with water buffaloes elsewhere, those in Tana Toraja do not spend their lives labouring. Their apparent main purpose in life is to merely eat and sleep and, like champion wrestlers, they are often fed milk and eggs to bulk them up. As their owners labouriously plough the land, these animals laze about in their pens like concubines waiting for their patrons. They must surely be the luckiest buffaloes in Indonesia! That is, until their owners decide that it’s time to slaughter them.

In Tana Toraja, a buffalo is the ultimate symbol of prestige. A proud owner of a prized buffalo is more respected than someone with a large collection of Louis Vuitton handbags. In official ceremonies, the role of a buffalo is irreplaceable. Buffaloes are also used as a social exchange currency. When a family is invited to a funeral ceremony, it is only fitting that they bring a high-value buffalo as a gift for the grieving family, whilst the grieving family themselves usually slaughter their best water buffaloes.

Visiting Tana Toraja
Enjoy a Toraja Tour 3D2N from Garuda Indonesia Holidays (www.garudaholidays.com) starting from IDR 3,914,000 ++

Itinerary

The package includes:
Economy class Jakarta-Makassar return tickets, two nights’ accommodation, breakfast, travel insurance, private transportation with AC, full board meals (according to travel schedule), entrance fees, bottled drinking water, tour guides, tolls and parking fees.

The package does not include:
Airport taxes, personal spending, driver, hotel bellboys and airport porter tips

Flight Schedule: