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Tana Toraja Funerals
September 2016Funerals are the center of ceremonial life for the people of Tana Toraja, a mountainous region of south-central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Funerals here are multiday affairs, as long, lavish, and expensive as weddings are in some other cultures. The day we attended a funeral with our local guide (who was related by marriage to the dead woman) was one of the days when guests come to sit with the family in temporary structures built around the family home. It was also a day when water buffaloes and pigs are sacrificed, both to feed the guests and to provide wealth (in the form of livestock) for the deceased in the next life.