Lestariweb
culture and traditions of Toraja
Lestariweb
One minority group that has been successful in gaining national and
international attention is the Toraja of central Sulawesi. This group's
prominence, beginning in the 1980s, was due largely to the tourist
industry, which was attracted to the region because of its picturesque
villages and its spectacular mortuary rites involving the slaughter of
water buffalo.
Inhabiting the wet, rugged mountains of the
interior of Sulawesi, the Toraja grow rice for subsistence and coffee
for cash. Traditionally, they live in fortified hilltop villages with
from two to forty picturesque houses with large sweeping roofs that
resemble buffalo horns. Up until the late 1980s, these villages were
politically and economically self-sufficient, partly as protection
against the depredations of the slave trade and partly as a result of
intervillage feuding associated with headhunting.
The
Toraja have strong emotional, economic, and political ties to a number
of different kinds of corporate groups. The most basic tie is the rarabuku,
which might be translated as family. Toraja view these groups as
relations of "blood and bone," that is, relations between
parents and children--the nuclear family.
Since Toraja reckon kinship
bilaterally, through both the mother and father, the possibilities for
extending the concept of rarabuku in several different
directions are many. Another important kind of group with which Toraja
have close affiliations is the tongkonan (ancestral house),
which contrasts with banua (ordinary house). Tongkonan
as social units consist of a group of people who reckon descent from an
original ancestor. The physical structures of tongkonan are
periodically renewed by replacing their distinctively shaped roofs. This
ritual is attended by members of the social group and accompanied by
trance-like dances in which the spirits are asked to visit. A third
important kind of affiliation is the saroan, or village work
group. These groups were probably originally agricultural work groups
based in a particular hamlet. Beginning as labor and credit exchanges, saroan
have since evolved into units of cooperation in ritual activities as
well. When sacrifices and funerals take place, these groups exchange
meat and other foods.
The flexibility of these affiliations is partly responsible for the
intensity of the mortuary performances. Because there is some ambiguity
about one's affiliation (that is, one's claims to descent are not only
based on blood relationships but also on social recognition of the
relationship through public acts), Toraja people may attempt to prove
the importance of a relationship through elaborate contributions to a
funeral, which provides an opportunity to prove not only a person's
devotion to a deceased parent, but also a person's claim to a share of
that parent's land. The amount of land an individual inherits from the
deceased might depend on the number of buffalo sacrificed at a parent's
funeral. Sometimes people even pawn land to get buffalo to kill at a
funeral so that they can claim the land of the deceased. Thus, feasting
at funerals is highly competitive.
The Toraja have two main kinds of rituals.
Those of the east-- known as rites of the rising sun and the rising
smoke--are concerned with planting fertility and abundance. Following
the rice harvest are rituals of the west centering on the setting sun,
consisting primarily of funerals. Both involve the sacrifice of water
buffalo, pigs, and chickens as offerings to the ancestors, and a complex
distribution of the meat among the living. Through the distribution of
meat, an elaborate network of debts and obligations is established and
passed to succeeding generations.
With the oil boom in the 1960s and 1970s, there were massive
outmigrations among upland Sulawesi young men looking for jobs in
northeastern Kalimantan. During this period, many of these youths became
Christians. But when they returned to their villages as wealthy men,
they often wanted to hold large status displays in the form of funerals,
causing what anthropologist Toby Alice Volkman calls "ritual
inflation." These displays provoked intense debates about the
authenticity of what some regarded as rituals of the nouveau riche.
During this same period, however, Indonesia promoted a policy that
encouraged the development of the non-oil-related sectors of the economy.
Part of this policy involved the development of the tourist trade, and
following coverage by the American media, waves of foreigners came to
see the carnage of buffalo slaughter. These numbers swelled in the early
1990s. Because of the successful efforts of highly placed Toraja
officials in the central government, their feasting practices were
granted official status as a branch of Balinese Hinduism.
Written by The Library of Congress - Country
Studies
Data as of November 1992
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