I See Dead People
Sat 7 Oct 2006
I’m well rested for day two in Toraja. After all, there wasn’t much to do after we finished the first day except sit around the pool and read. My hotel, like most of the accommodations around here, is removed from the main cities, and there doesn’t seem to be enough to do in Rantepao to make it worth the effort of getting there. It’s not often I actually get to relax on these research trips, so a little down-time is not such a bad thing at all.
Today we head to the south to explore another aspect of the Torajan ‘obsession’ with death, their tombs. I saw a lot of rock tombs yesterday, but these are mostly for the ‘common’ people, or at least those that can afford them. Today we’re going to see the tombs of the former royalty and upper classes. The big difference is that these royal tombs are accompanied by manikins called tau tau. These statues are placed in balconies carved out of the stone cliff faces next to the crypts - that’s another big difference between the tombs of the common people and the royal tombs - the royal crypts are chiseled out of big cliffs instead of boulders.
The most well-known ‘royal’ cliff tombs are at Lemo. At Lemo there are several balconies carved into the cliff, all filled with the tau tau dolls. Each doll represents one of the people entombed within the cliff. Originally, the statues didn’t bear any likeness to the person at all, but the trend now is to give them an appearance similar to the real person. I’m told that all of the tau tau at Lemo are relatively new. The originals were purchased by European collectors many years ago, so the ones you see now are recent replicas. The wooden statues are clothed, and there is supposedly an annual ceremony to replace the clothing, money permitting.
We take a break from the tombs to visit the weekly market in Rantepao. Held every six days, the market features a huge area where buffalo are traded. It’s interesting to see how much care and attention is lavished of these beasts, especially considering that those bought at the market are most likely destined to be sacrificed at some funeral. You’ll also see a lot of coffee on sale in the market, since it’s practically a local institution.
Our next stop are the caves at Londa. The cave openings are in a huge ‘gash’ in the face of a limestone cliff. The face of the rock around the caves has a balcony with several lifelike tau tau statues on one side. On the other are stacks of coffins. On platforms built beneath the overhanging cliff face are several more coffins. At the entrance of the first cave are several skulls set in niches in the rock. Further into the cave, coffins and bones are spread about in a seemingly haphazard fashion. We have to crawl at one point to get further into the cave, where there are still more coffins.
At the entrance to the second cave are more skulls. Just inside the entrance, you can see the back of the wall of coffins you can see stacked up on the cliff face. I’m told that the coffins are simply allowed to rot in place, and at the base of the stack is a huge pile of bones. I’d be a little worried about avalanches! Opposite to the coffin wall inside the cave, a rock ledge just a few inches below the ceiling is lined with more skulls. The same family has used these caves for around a thousand years, which accounts for all the coffins.
Outside the caves, a path leads uphill and around a small rice terrace. Once you get to the opposite side, you have a good view back towards the caves. From here, you can also see there are some niches carved high up on the cliff, which hold more graves. These are of very important people.
Our last stop is at the woodworker’s village. We actually don’t go right to the village, which is something of a tourist trap. Instead, my guide and I get out of the car and walk through some rice fields a short distance away. This is where most of the woodworkers really live and work. Unfortunately, since it’s a market day, most of them aren’t home. It doesn’t matter since it’s a really enjoyable walk through a wooded area. We end up cutting through some more fields, and even a few people’s yards, to end up at the woodworker’s village of traditional tongkonan houses. There are several shops here where you can see the craftsmen at work, and of course buy their wares. I must say that the quality of workmanship here is much better than in the souvenir shops that sell the same things elsewhere in Indonesia.
Just past the shops is another cliff-face grave area. There are no caves or crypts carved into this cliff. Instead, most of the coffins are on platforms built on to the cliff face. Over the years, many of the platforms have obviously rotted away and the coffins have fallen down, spilling their contents around the base of the cliff. Apparently, someone occasionally comes along and gathers the bones into a huge pile, or collects them into one of the coffins that’s still in one piece.
From there it’s back to the hotel for another quiet evening, then tomorrow I head back to Makassar and on to Bandung.
