Dan Toraja Research Articles

Families, Funerals and Facebook: Reimag(in)ing and ‘Curating’ Toraja Kin in Trans-local Times

AbstractThe Sa'dan Toraja of upland Sulawesi, Indonesia have long been celebrated in the anthropological literature for their elaborate procession-filled mortuary rituals, which draw vast networks of kith and kin to mourn, memorialise, and reaffirm familial bonds and obligations. Whether residing in the homeland or abroad, most Torajans underscore funeral rites as the most vital expression of Toraja familial and cultural identity. Although some estimates suggest that more Torajans now reside off-island and overseas than remain in the homeland, extended familial funerals in the homeland continue to have a centripetal physical, economic and emotional pull. While various scholars have documented the ways in which remittances from Toraja migrants or the presence of international tourists have transformed Toraja funerals in recent decades, this article focusses on the role of social media in navigating global familial relationships and rituals. Indonesia has the largest number of Facebook subscribers in the world, and this study offers the first exploration of the ways in which Facebook interweaves far-flung familial relationships. This study also examines house-society orientations in the Toraja highlands and addresses the use of Facebook by Torajans in the homeland to cultivate continued allegiances to ancestral houses (around which extended Toraja families are oriented). Finally, this article also examines a large-scale 2012 Toraja funeral in order to spotlight the contours of the Toraja family in the current era of neoliberalism and cyber-technologies. The article offers insights into the ways in which various Torajans navigate social media and non-local corporations to image, reimagine and negotiate familial identities for various audiences (local, national and transnational).

Space and Time in Indonesian Polymusic

In Indonesia, polymusic – juxtaposed music – is performed during major ceremonies. Several groups play simultaneously, in the same space, but different tunes. If many tunes are performed at the same time in the same space, who can listen to them ? Seven cases of Indonesian polymusic, from South Sulawesi, West Kalimantan, and Bali, recorded between 1991 and 2001 are described : a Sa’dan Toraja funeral (pasonglo), house ceremony (bua’ sangrapu), and trance ritual (maro pabalikan), a Dayak Taman ritual for the ancestors (gawai mamandung), a Balinese temple ceremony (odalan). The seven examples are compared through an analysis of space and time, in order to disclose their common aspects and relevant meanings. Polymusic presents the musicologist with a paradox of temporal and spatial perception. While assembling groups of singers at the same time and in the same space, these rituals prescribe their separation and individualization. The analysis of space and time points to a double perception : that of a differentiated and an undifferentiated world. This is translated on the acoustic level by the simultaneous juxtaposition and synthesis of different repertoires and different groups, which reveals – both sensorily and intellectually – either the groups’ differences or the achievement of a macro-unity expressing the ritual expenditure.

Flows of words and flows of blessing: The poetics of invocatory speech among the Sa’dan Toraja

The human propensity to address the unseen is a profound anthropological and linguistic puzzle. Ethnographers of ‘prayer’ in Southeast Asia have proposed that invocations are opposed as a form of utterance to other genres such as narration. This paper challenges that assumption with the analysis of some Toraja examples having a more declarative and instrumental quality. It also expands on Schefold’s observations (2001) about ‘flows of blessing’ as a characteristically Austronesian concept. Above all, the intensely poetic qualities of Toraja invocations suggest the possibility of a deeper link between prayer and poetry, as linguistic genres intended to move the hearer.

The Death-Bearing Senses in Tana Toraja

Based on fieldwork among the Sa'dan Toraja of Indonesia, this article explores a specific connection between the living and the dead. Perceived as a sensual relationship embedded in a particular sensory modality, this connection implies an indigenous phenomenology of ‘death-as-being-in-the-world’. Focusing on this ‘being’ and utilizing Paul Valéry's evocative description of the ‘glance of death’ to introduce and formulate my argument, I explore the lives of the dead and examine the power of their senses. More than that, rather than re-presentation and epistemology, I argue for an understanding of death which places the emphasis on indigenous ontology and foregrounds the affective way in which Toraja live their lives and their deaths.

Art as politics: re-crafting identities, tourism, and power in Tana Toraja, Indonesia

Art as Politics explores the intersection of art, identity politics, and tourism in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Based on long-term ethnographic research from the 1980s to the present, the book offers a nuanced portrayal of the Sa'dan Toraja, a predominantly Christian minority group in the world's most populous Muslim country. Celebrated in anthropological and tourism literatures for their spectacular houses, sculpted effigies of the dead, and pageantry-filled funeral rituals, the Toraja have entered an era of accelerated engagement with the global economy marked by on-going struggles over identity, religion, and social relations. In her engaging account, Kathleen Adams chronicles how various Toraja individuals and groups have drawn upon artistically-embellished traditional objects - as well as monumental displays, museums, UNESCO ideas about word heritage, and the World Wide Web - to shore up or realign aspects of a cultural heritage perceived to be under threat. She also considers how outsiders - be they tourists, art collectors, members of rival ethnic groups, or government officials - have appropriated and reframed Toraja art objects for their own purposes. Her account illustrates how art can serve as a catalyst in identity politics, especially in the context of tourism and social upheaval. Ultimately, this insightful work prompts readers to rethink persistent and pernicious popular assumptions - that tourism invariably brings a loss of agency to local communities or that tourist art is a compromised form of expression. Art as Politics promises to be a favorite with students and scholars of anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, ethnic relations, art, and Asian studies.

Words of intimacy: re-membering the dead in Buntao'

Based on fieldwork among the Sa’dan Toraja of Indonesia, this article examines a specific relationship between the living and the dead. It is a relationship which is usually described in terms of intimacy. Within this intimacy, the living and the dead are described as sharing the same desires. Furthermore, as far as the living are concerned, these desires have to be expressed in words and acted out in the form of mortuary sacrifices. In this way, the living are said to remember the dead. My discussion focuses on the implications of this memory.

Death and the Sacrifice of Signs: ‘Measuring’ the Dead in Tana Toraja

Suggesting the existence of an intrinsic connection between sacrifice and embodiment, this article considers the meaning and symbolism of traditional mortuary rituals among the Sa'dan Toraja of Indonesia. Manifesting different ways of being, these rituals engender different ways of dying. Focusing on the sacrificial patterns of their engenderment, I discuss these differences and the way in which they are thought to ‘emerge from the body’.

Being in place and being a place; Sumanga' in Buntao’

Likewise for the Sa'dan Toraja of South Sulawesi, as an early commentator put it, 'there is something, they believe, that is neither matter nor force. Let us call it soul. It is this soul that makes all living things tick men and women, birds, beasts and fishes, flowers and trees. It exists in differing quant ities or concentrations in different living things' (Wilcox 1949:117). Ebbing and flowing, however, this 'soul' remains elusive and invisible. Although lodged at the very centre of existence, it seems to be lacking an easily dis cernible presence. It is about 'fortune' (kinande) and 'health' {kamasakkeran), but it is not fortune or health. It is about life' (katuoan) and 'death' (kamatean), but it is not life or death indeed, hidden in the enigma of its unfolding ('path'), it traverses both life and death. Beyond what it is or is not, I would like to suggest, it is only in the pattern of its unfolding that it gains a mode of being and expresses its immanence. In making 'living things tick', it both manifests and embodies its flow. Thus, rather than the living things in them selves, what is important is the way they are joined together in an almost in finite series of related embodiments and manifestations. Depicting its config

Embodied difference; The ‘body-person’ of the Sa’dan Toraja

In Tana Toraja1, as elsewhere in insular Southeast Asia (see Fox 1987:526), humankind is not believed to have a single origin or source of being. The indigenous notion of humanity comprises a multiplicity of heterogeneous manifestations. For instance, while some humans are described as ripe, others are depicted as raw, soft, wet, and even empty. Deeply embedded in myth and legend, epithets such as these are thought to encode disparate ways of being. This disparity, often expressed in terms of 'essence' (bombong), is largely seen as immutable. By outlining its major features and elucidating the reasons behind its acknowledged immutability, I shall try to chart the way it is perceived and explore some of its major implications. As the articulation of disparity is intimately linked with the Toraja ancestral religion (aluk to dolo, 'the ways of the ancestors') and the sacrificial practices embedded in it, this exploration of human diversity will focus on certain aspects of Toraja tradition and the configuration of disparate human natures derived from it. Since most of my information originates in the eastern community of Buntao' (see map, no. 3), the term Toraja will be used here mostly as an appellation for the people of Buntao'. Despite considerable regional variation, there is a great deal of similarity between the various communities, however, and in this sense, much of the following discussion is meant both to extend and to support the extant

Entertaining a Dangerous Guest: Sacrifice and Play in the Ma'pakorong Ritual of the Sa'dan Toraja

ABSTRACTMa'pakorong is a Toraja ritual performed in honour of the goddess of pox, Puang Ruru‘. She is invited into the village to be entertained with music, cockfighting, and food offerings before being escorted away with the expressed hope that she will not return for seven years. Ludic and sacrificial elements are inextricably interwoven in the rite, particularly in the cockfight, and I analyse these apparently contradictory elements in relation both to recent theoretical writings, and to the Toraja ritual cycle as a whole, drawing parallels with ritual contests in some other Indonesian societies. Besides dealing with illness, conceived as categorical disorder and excessive ‘heat’, the rite is ultimately concerned with the enhancement of fertility, and emphasises community benefits instead of the intense status competition which predominates at mortuary rites.

Houses, graves and the limits of kinship groupings among the Sa’dan Toraja

Chez les Sa'dan Toraja du Sud du Sulawesi, le systeme de parente est indissociable des maisons (« tongkonan »), du groupe de parente bilaterale (« rapu ») et de la tombe (« liang »). L'appartenance a tel ou tel groupe est revendiquee par rapport a la maison d'origine et les relations entre les differentes branches peuvent evoluer. Quant a l'emplacement du mort, etre enterre dans la tombe du « rapu » est une question d'honneur et est lie a la relation entre les morts et les vivants qui doivent respecter leurs ancetres. Cette tradition est semblable a celles de Roti et de Bali

The Discourse of Souls in Tana Toraja (Indonesia): Indigenous Notions and Christian Conceptions

In Insular Southeast Asia, indigenous religions are oriented more towards practice than philosophy. Geertz's (1973:177) observations concerning in Bali generally hold true for other autochthonous religions of the Indonesian archipelago: Beyond a minimal level there is almost no interest in doctrine... The stress is on orthopraxy, not orthodoxy. Accordingly, discussions of indigenous notions of the soul in insular Southeast Asia rarely center on philosophical doctrine. Rather, local practitioners tend to emphasize ritual obligations to souls at various points in time, enumerating the requisite rites to aid souls in their afterlife journeys (cf. Fox 1973; Weinstock 1987). This essay is broadly concerned with the relationship between such amorphous practice-centered indigenous conceptions of soul and subsequently-introduced Christian metaphysical propositions. Recently, Indonesianists studying processes of relgious transformation have prompted us to recognize the dynamic interplay between world religions, national politics, and indigenous religions (cf. Atkinson 1983; Kipp and Rodgers 1987). Atkinson (1983), for instance, has elegantly demonstrated how the construction of the Central Sulawesi Wana is rooted in a dialogue with both world religions and nationalist Indonesian civil religion. In a similar vein, Hoskins (1987) illustrates how the redefinition of Sumbanese spirit worship as a religion resulted from exposure to the doctrine of the Christian church and the Indonesian government. On Sumba, what was once a system of ritual practices and regulations became transformed into a system of beliefs. Taking such notions of religions in dialogue as a starting point, this essay examines indigenous and Christian conceptions of the soul among the Sa'dan Toraja of upland Sulawesi. While Hoskins and Atkinson give more attention to the influence of world religions and national politics on local belief systems, my major focus in this paper is on the other side of the dialogue. That is, I am particularly concerned with the ways in which Christian Torajans incorporate and reformulate indigenous conceptions of the soul. Ranger (1987:183) has stressed the ironic aspect of African Christianity, noting that the dialectic between local religions and Christianity evolves in ways that confound both missionary and indigenous expectations. In this essay I examine how, for Christian Torajans, indigenous and Christian notions of soul not only coexist, but intermingle and at times compete. This essay begins with a discussion of the indigenous Torajan conception of the soul. One should note, however, that several factors have encouraged a more formal elaboration of their notions of soul. These factors include Torajan exposure to doctrine-centered world religions, the Indonesian government's 1969 recognition of Torajan Aluk to dolo as an official religion, and the queries of anthropologists and tourists visiting the Toraja highlands. After examining indigenous notions of the soul, I contrast these with the Dutch Reformed Church's vision of the soul. The final section addresses lay Christian Torajans' approach to the concept, and suggests that there is a discernable pattern to those indigenous ideas about the soul that persist. ETHNOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND The Sa'dan Toraja people are primarily wet-rice farmers inhabiting mountaninous Tana Toraja Regency in the province of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Most Torajans speak both Tae' Toraja, an Austronesian language closely related to other South Sulawesi languages (Mills 1975), and the national lingua franca of Bahasa Indonesia. In a multi-ethnic nation of 185 million people, the Toraja are a minority group numbering approximately 350,000. Torajan society is hierarchically organized on the basis of age, descent, occupation, and wealth. Traditionally there were three basic ranks: the aristocracy (to parengnge'); commoners (to buda, to sama); and serfs or slaves (kaunan). …

Changing Patterns of Architecture and Symbolism among the Sa'dan Toraja (Indonesia)

Some of the world's most interesting traditions of wooden architecture are found among the ethnic groups of Indonesia. Although most of these traditions are known to some degree from ethnographic literature, only few have as yet become the subject of comprehensive ethnoarchitectural studies by researchers specialized in the field. As a result, really adequate monographic treatments of such building cultures are still largely a desideratum. Even the work under review* cannot satisfy the requirements one would like to set up for ethno-architectural monographs. But given the general rarity of books about traditional Indonesian architecture, it deserves our attention as an attractive contribution that is likely to stimulate research in this neglected field. The book is based on two months of fieldwork among the Sa'dan Toraja1 of South Sulawesi, done in summer 1983 by a team consisting of two anthropologists (Hetty Nooy-Palm and Reimar Schefold), a photographer (Ursula Schulz-Dornburg), and an architect (Jowa Imre Kis-Jovak). As is stressed in the introductory chapter, multidisciplinary collaboration was an essential feature of the project, particularly with regard to grasping the symbolic aspects of Sa'dan Toraja

Order and Disorder in Toraja Thought and Ritual

An important conceptual dimension for the Toraja of South Sulawesi, Indonesia is the relationship between order, constraint, and coolness, on the one hand, and disorder, lack of constraint, and heat, on the other. Following a discussion of order and disorder in Toraja life and thought, the article explores the relevance of this conceptual dimension to: (1) an understanding of Toraja ideas concerning the attainment of fertility, prosperity, and general vitality, ideas that I will place into a comparative context in relation to similar ideas elsewhere in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and (2) an understanding of recent changes in Toraja ritual, specifically, the decline of smoke-ascending rituals. The Toraja (more precisely, the Sa'dan Toraja) number approximately 350,000, speak an Austronesian language closely related to other South Sulawesi languages (Mills 1975), and are wet rice agriculturalists whose homeland comprises the administrative region (kabupaten) of Tana Toraja, located in the mountainous interior of South Sulawesi. Among the Toraja, descent is traced bilaterally and residence is bilocal, although there is a tendency for uxorilocal residence. Traditionally, there were three main social strata: nobles, commoners, and dependents or slaves. Nobles claimed to be direct descendants of beings (to manurun) who long ago descended from the upperworld (LangV) to earth. In contrast to the lowland kingdoms of the Bugis and Makassar, the Toraja area prior to the early 20th century was politically decentralized, with nobles competing for control of various local areas. Most activities of a legal or political nature were conducted at the village level, although larger territorial groupings performed certain ceremonial and at times legal and political functions (Nooy-Palm 1979:63, 7991). This article is based on material collected primarily in the village of (a pseudonym) located in the northwest district of Rindingallo. Within Tana Toraja, there is considerable regional variation in terminology and cultural beliefs and practices and what is presented here may not apply elsewhere (cf. Crystal and Yamashita 1987:58-63, 70). Although the majority of the population of Tana Toraja is now Christian, in the Paku Asu area there are still many adherents of the traditional religion, referred to as Aluk To Dolo (Religion/Way of People Who Came Before), or more commonly in the Paku Asu area, Alukta (Our Religion/Way or Religion/Way of People), and the residents of Paku Asu in many ways continue to maintain a traditional orientation to the world. The main feature of the traditional religion is the

The ideology and terminology of kinship among the Sa’dan Toraja

The ideology and terminology of kinship among the Sa’dan Toraja

「肉の政治学」 : サダン・トラジャの死者祭宴

「肉の政治学」 : サダン・トラジャの死者祭宴

Introduction to the Sa'dan Toraja people and their country

1) Ny. C.H. Nooy Palm (Jurusan Ilmu-ilmu Sosial, Koninklijk Institut voor de Tropen, Amsterdam) terlebih dulu akan me- nyampaikan suatu gambaran umum tentang orang-orang Toraja dan daerahnya (lokasi, bahasa), selanjutnya membeberkan dengan singkat organisasi daerah tata praja, susunan sosial dan kekeluargaan dan penulis akhirnya menutup artikel ini dengan suatu pendapat tentang sifat Toraja. Kemudian penulis menya- jikan sebuah ikhtisar dari agama Toraja dengan membahas pandangan alam, roh dan dewa, dan terutama rituil mereka. Rituil tersebut dibagi dua : di satu pihak rituil Timur dan Timur laut ialah rituil kehidupan yang bersangkutan dengan dewa-dewa, dan di pihak lain rituil Barat dan Barat daya ialah rituil kematian yang bersangkutan dengan nenek moyang yang belum didewakan. Dengan singkat diuraikan tujuan, tahap- tahap terpenting dan pendeta masing-masing rituil itu.