02
03
exploring Tanah Toraja
Two days of intensive exploration of Toraja Land and its people with their powerful cultural identity. Time to find small villages with names like Sangalla, Ketekesu, Marante and Palawa and to retrace an ancient way of life. Unique houses with their characteristic roof, are dotted all over the place. Deceased are usually buried in holes of a rock-face. All highlights in the area will be visited, but if some of the burial ceremonies take place, your guide will bring you to the scene of these intriguing and grandly staged events. Young women perform trance-like dances, rituals from pre-Christian religions reappear, visitors include relatives who might come from any far flung corner of the archipelago, ritual fights between different village clans are held, numerous expensive water buffalos will be slaughtered, all to appease the animist spirits of an Unseen World. The ceremony goes on an on for days on end while all attending are sheltered in make-shift bamboo houses, built exclusively for this purpose. They must be fed, according their social status as well.
