The art of dying in Tana Toraja, Sulawesi

After living in the Indonesian island Java for almost a year, we wanted to go ‘native’ one last time. A trip that took us to Sulawesi and to Toraja, home of the biggest show-offs of the country. “The money flies through the air.”

“That dude smells of alcohol.” Anete turned up her nose. In front of us, a small fatso gesticulated wildly and pointed at his taxi. Please, forgive my travel companion’s disdainful tone – she is neither teetotaller nor quick to judge – but this was something we were not used to. By then, we had been living for ten months in Yogyakarta, on the Indonesian island of Java, where alcohol was rarer than a razor blade in the bathroom of a hippie. The government had only recently introduced a rule restricting the sale of beer in supermarkets. Our year in Java was over and we wanted to make one last trip, to Sulawesi. The first thing that blew into our face upon docking in Makassar was a booze smell which even Ernest Hemingway would be ashamed of.

***

We sent the guy packing and crawled into a becak, the local bicycle taxi. If this driver was under the weather, too, and decided to park his cargo bike against a palm tree, at least it would happen at a speed that wouldn’t make us kick the bucket. The rhythm of the becak was ideal for a first round of sightseeing. The route towards the city centre housed one dingy karaoke bar next to another. We were on Makassar’s famous pussy street. The bars’ primary appeal was not that you could scream along to The Summer of 69. No, they attracted sea-weary sailors for different reasons. Indonesia might be a predominantly Muslim country, but that didn’t mean that no one wanted to get laid from time to time.

Naples on the water

Twenty-nine hours earlier. We left solid ground behind and hoisted ourselves onto the Ciremai, a proud member of Indonesia’s mighty ferry fleet. Proud, as in: it had not yet caught fire or gone down with man and mouse. Quite an achievement, if the newspapers were to be believed. Of course, we could’ve flown to Sulawesi, but where is the adventure in that? Besides, ferries were a lot more comfortable – in our imagination, at least. We should’ve known that the Indonesians would fill up those boats in true Lampedusa-style. On our square metre, we could barely turn around without knocking three fellow passengers to the ground with our elbows.

But we had nothing to complain about. At least we had secured a place on deck, in the fresh air, where the engines hummed a lullaby. Inside, we discovered, it was much worse. Everywhere, Indonesians in giant meat piles lay grunting on dirty mattresses. There was no air in this sauna and after only two hours the trash piled up so much that even the striking rubbish collectors in Naples would spontaneously start working again, out of pity. No wonder cockroaches crawled out of every crevice. Not to mention the toilets. Absolute madness. Excrement floated in each of the toilet bowls. Tired of waiting for an available shower stall, a young guy tipped a full water bottle over his head. No problem – those waiting were up to their ankles in a soak of other people’s body dirt anyway.

Case study: how do people entertain themselves during a 24-hour boat trip?

Sleeping

The number one activity. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering it’s the favourite activity of most Indonesians. True masters of the art, they can snooze in the seemingly most uncomfortable positions and situations.

Anete became Indonesian after living there for a year

Praying

Just because you hoist yourself onto a boat does not mean you can forsake your duties as a good Muslim. There were mosques and prayer rooms on board. Even at sea, we did not escape the loud call for the morning prayer.

Showering

Or more correctly: tipping small buckets of water over one’s head. You would expect a right-thinking person to mingle as little as possible in the bathroom chaos, but no… Surely a Muslim could not appear before Allah unwashed?

Buying

Vendors peddled their goods: food, drinks, cigarettes, as well as giant bright red stuffed bears. Indispensable on such a crossing, right? Our boat neighbours spent at least half an hour inspecting jewellery – checking the quality with a torch and magnifying glass and negotiating the price – before finally splashing the cash on an outsized, ugly necklace.

Eating and drinking

Three meals a day are included in the ticket. Your Styrofoam box with white rice, murky vegetables and a piece of fish could be collected from the area where the waste of the whole boat is stored.

Smoking

Come on, that two-hour wait in the smoke-free ferry terminal was long enough.

Staring at smartphones and tables, playing card games, chatting loudly, but definitely not reading books.

Or, for those too lazy to read all the above, a summary: everyday life anywhere in Indonesia.

Crazy person in Bantimurung!

For those who suspect we have a few loose screws: we were undertaking this journey because we were on a mission. A mission to paradise: the Togean Islands, in our daydreams a Garden of Eden with Bounty beaches and local beauties in straw skirts refilling our pina coladas without being asked. The beaches of Bali? Too packed! We weren’t getting off of our asses for anything less than a pristine Valhalla. Before we could release our inner Robinson Crusoe, we still had almost all of Sulawesi to cross, but that felt like a negligible detail. Especially since we were planning a few stopovers.

***

Bantimurung National Park featured high on our wish list. Between July and October 1857, the British gentleman Alfred Russel Wallace filled his days in Bantimurung chasing butterflies with a sweep net. A friend of Charles Darwin, Wallace was at least as important to science as his confrere. That he’s not as famous has much to do with his modesty and his legendary bad luck. Sailing back home after four years of fieldwork in the Amazon Delta, his boat caught fire and Wallace lost all his notes, sketches and samples. He floated around in a lifeboat for days and nearly lost his life.

It did not stop him from spending twelve years in the ‘Malay archipelago’ in the service of science. Miraculously without his boat catching fire even once. Scouting the many islands, he honed his theory of evolution and explained it in a letter to Darwin. When Wallace returned to the UK in 1862, Darwin’s theory of evolution had already been published and he was a national celebrity. To his credit, it never made Wallace bitter.

***

As of 2015, the entrance fee for the national park was 25,000 rupiah for Indonesians (1.6 euro) and 225,000 rupiah for foreigners. As students in Indonesia, however, we were not subject to this typical money-grubbing. A guard ran to meet us. “Those are the official prices. But if you pay four tickets of 25,000 rupiah per person, we will let you in”, he quipped.

“No way, pal,” we riposted, waving our residence permit vigorously. “We are entitled to the local price.”

“Alright, alright. Two tickets per person and let’s not talk about it again.” Translation: especially for you, I am only half as corrupt.

“Did Wallace have to pay as steep an entrance fee here at the time perhaps?”

We’d hit a sore spot. “Orang gila!” the guard barked at us. Crazy person! But he immediately recoiled in fear when I took a step in his direction. And let’s be honest, I’m no wider than a bicycle pump. We got our way and regretted it immediately.

Wallace called Bantimurung ‘the butterfly kingdom’. That kingdom has turned into a tyranny. Wallace found 256 different species of our winged friends here. In 1977, there were 103. That number had undoubtedly dropped even more seriously since then. At least, if we didn’t count the vendors at the entrance, selling framed specimens. As everywhere in Indonesia, beauty and destruction went hand in hand.

Lake Tempe

Fortunately, not all places were so shamelessly commercial. Take Sengkang, on the shores of Lake Tempe, where time seemed to stand still. Tempe, by the way, is Indonesia’s national delicacy, a soybean-based snack best enjoyed deep-fried with a spicy sambal sauce. I found it funny that they had named a lake after it.

In Sengkang, we noticed for the first time how wild and largely underdeveloped large parts of Sulawesi still were. Fishermen had built floating bamboo structures on the water to make fishing easier. Families lived together on stilt houses. Not tourism, but fishing was the main economic activity. The people lived by the grace of the lake. Bad luck for them, their source of income was dying. Once, the lake was part of a gulf that separated South Sulawesi from the rest of the island, now the land was winning. Lake Tempe was slowly turning into a swamp. Within a geological second, it would look like it was never there.

Before that happened, we wanted to take a leisurely trip. We had read that Lake Tempe is an eldorado for bird watchers. Yet, as I said, Sulawesi was underdeveloped. A boat trip – sure, it was possible, if you really, really wanted to. You only needed to find your own fisherman to take you around. And so, a little later, we stood with our thumbs out beside the lake – hitchhiking on the water.

Church karaoke

“Ku cinta Yesus dan Yesus cintaku.” Imanuel sang it out loud and without a hint of irony. He fiddled with his fancy car radio and a video clip appeared on the screen. A fat lady raised her arms dramatically and started a heartfelt chant about Jesus. At the bottom of the screen, the lyrics ran along. “I love Jesus and Jesus loves me.” Church karaoke, an experience we never thought we’d have in Indonesia.

The boat hitchhike from a day earlier inspired us to try and reach Tana Toraja (Toraja Land) without spending a rupiah. Toraja Imanuel was our first Good Samaritan. The Torajans lived in the mountainous heart of South Sulawesi, where protestant missionaries from the Netherlands did an apt job of converting the local population. Over 80 per cent of the population had a Bible on their bedside table. Imanuel himself no longer lived in Toraja Land. He taught physiotherapy at a university in Makassar and worked as a physiotherapist for the local first-division team. He was not the only Toraja to leave home and earn a living outside the region. Half of an estimated 1.1 million Torajans lived elsewhere. They settled down in Java, Papua, Borneo or even Australia.

***

“In Toraja, there is only agriculture and tourism”, Imanuel clarified. “And, well, our traditions require serious capital.” He reached into his pocket and tapped his mobile phone. “This is ours”, he murmured, pushing the mobile into our hands. “That one cost 10,000 dollars.” On the screen, a rosy buffalo. “A bargain, really. It was only a calf when we bought it. Full-grown buffaloes easily change hands for a tenfold.” We scrolled through his Facebook and beheld one buffalo after another. Imanuel simultaneously commented on its value. The man was not just crazy about Jesus. But why was he returning to his native land in the first place?

“Oh”, he responded laconically. “For my grandmother’s funeral.”

“Sorry to hear that”, I tried to comfort him, somewhat awkwardly.

“No problem, she’s been dead for five years. It’s about bloody time!”

Endless palm wine

The Torajans have strange traditions. They believe recently deceased people are not dead, just sick. The dead belong to the family for years to come. You can take that literally, the body is balsamed with formol and given a spot in the house. The corpse protects the rest of the family, even if the dead finally succumbs ‘for real’. Hence the importance of a lavish funeral: no one wants to risk that the dead guy or girl isn’t happy with just a few wreaths and a simple funeral meal. And hence also why it is crucial to make many children, send them out to all sides of the country to earn money and thus assure yourself of said exuberant funeral.

We wanted to attend such a ceremony. First, however, we had other priorities. After all, the deeply Christian nature of the locals had its perks. Ballok, to name just one, palm wine tapped from large jerry cans all over Torajaland. We had gotten tired of the local beer for some time. As far as we were concerned, the preferred Indonesian brand Bintang was the most telling proof that the Dutch once the archipelago. With great anticipation, I gulped the ballok… only to spit it right back out. “Blech, that tastes like soap water. Undrinkable!” Off to bed, without a nightcap.

A man washes a buffalo in a river in the land of Toraja.

Fairytale forest Toraja

Taking a walk in Toraja felt like getting lost in a fairytale forest. The houses in particular seemed to come straight out of the Disney studios. Or perhaps they were designed by an architect who drank too much ballok. They reminded me of boats. “Originally, the Torajans came from Indochina”, clarified guide Nicolas. “They got caught up in a heavy storm and washed up on these shores, their boats badly damaged.”

Finding the land uninhabited and inhospitable, the Torajans decided to camp under their boats. Indonesians can sleep anywhere, I already said it. Nicolas told us that Toraja means ‘people of kings’, proving the thesis that everyone writes their own history. The more accepted explanation is that the Bugis coined the name. In their language, Toraja means ‘people of the mountains’. The Bugis were shipbuilders, proud seafarers from the coastal regions. In their eyes, Torajans were rice farmers, mountain dwellers without sea legs, poor and a touch backwards.

Funeral season

July was funeral season in Toraja. Not that everyone here died at the same time, like during a heatwave in a retirement home. Summer was simply the season when emigres from all over the country could take a holiday. Welcome to a macabre mass reunion. “A funeral of a prominent Toraja can easily last two weeks”, said Nicolas. “One day, the family receives up to 1,000 guests; the next, they ritually slaughter buffaloes; and so on. Today, you will see a funeral procession of a chief who died three years ago. But first, let’s go to a buffalo fight.”

In that fight, the animals show their strength and courage. Crucial properties, because the buffaloes accompany the dead on his journey to meet the maker. In other words, when a buffalo does well in this arena, it signs its death warrant. “The owners bet big bucks on those fights”, said Nicolas. “Up to ten million rupiah, or 650 euros.” A waste of money, I think. The buffalo fight turned out to be a flop. Most of the animals turned out to be more peaceful than Mahatma Gandhi after an overdose of sleeping pills. They showed much more interest in eating grass than attacking each other. It didn’t get more exciting than some clenching of horns. After which the biggest coward left the battlefield, accompanied by loud cheers and curses.

Tribal Love Parade

Excitedly, we waited by the side of the road. Black and pink ‘albino’ buffaloes walked by. In Toraja, people treated the animals like princesses, at least when they were still alive. The priciest had a personal assistant who wouldn’t leave their side, bathing them, swatting flies off their bodies and ensuring they chewed their grass properly. The horde of buffaloes at the beginning of the parade represented a sizeable capital. “The more powerful the dead, the more buffaloes are being slaughtered”, explained Nicolas.

“There is a mystic side to it, as it eases the journey of the deceased to the afterlife. But in reality, it’s nothing more than prestige. Look how wealthy we are! That’s why it can sometimes take years before a deceased person is laid to rest: it takes that long for the family to gather the necessary funds. Suppose, as a young guy, you want to marry your sweetheart. You better first make sure that she doesn’t have a grandfather on the brink of death. You need to have enough money for the funeral.”

A group of mourners followed with the coffin, which rested on a bamboo construction hoisted by young boys. They didn’t look sad, quite on the contrary. Primal jungle noises sounded from their throats, and everyone laughed. Suddenly, the pallbearers dropped the coffin. They dashed apart, jeering, ranting and throwing water. One smart-ass got hold of a garden hose and sprayed the others. He, in turn, got a cup of water sloshed down his neck. This didn’t look like a funeral, more like a tribal version of the Love Parade. Which ancient traditions were connected to these rituals, Nicolas? The guide shrugged. “None, it’s just for fun.”

Money’s flying in the air of Toraja

We arrived at the rante, a rectangular pavilion that served as the place of ceremony. On all sides, bamboo huts housed guests. Its finishing was majestic: figures had been manually carved into every inch of wood. “The rante stands here temporarily”, Nicolas explained. “After the funeral, it gets broken down again. Then the coffin is placed in a cave, carved out with a hammer and chisel. It takes two men six months to finish. Count those work work-hours and you’ll realise: dying is expensive here.”

Subsequently, fireworks amounting to a small family car were lit off. It felt like a rich bastard ostentatiously lit his cigar with a hundred-dollar note. And to say that the most surreal scene was yet to come. After a few strong men hoisted the coffin onto a tower, the family started throwing money down. It began with the smallest notes, but soon those of 50,000 and 100,000 rupiah (respectively 3 and 6 euros) fluttered through the air, a day’s wage for many Indonesians. The deepest animal instincts emerged. Elbows flew around, and fighting youngsters rolled over the ground. If the funeral reminded me of the Love Parade, then this resembled a moshpit at a punk festival. An effective way to get crowds of people to attend your funeral, though.