WHERE THE BUFFALO GROAN
Joe. If I could have delved one million scenes into the depths of my imagination, 
I would never have pictured myself at a Torajan funeral sitting on a hillside, overlooking a rice paddy, buzzed on palm wine with a couple hundred Indonesians, watching the buffalo fights.
Visiting Tana Toraja is my number one priority in Indonesia. The Torajan people live in the central hills of South Sulawesi. Although many Torajans have moved into the modern world of bustling towns, automobiles and electronics, they, as well as their rural kin, still cling to their traditional cultural obsession with death and funerals.
The funeral is the most important event in a Torajan’s life. Outsiders jokingly say they begin saving for it at birth. I had seen pictures of these events over the years as well as pictures of their traditional houses that resemble long boats, bow and stern pointing up to heaven. Those images drew me here, and although it is not the time of year when funerals are normally held, I had hoped we’d get lucky.
John. We arrive in Rantapao late after a long bus ride. The bus is plush and in retrospect spoils us completely. Much to our surprise the bus lets us off exactly where we need to be, and our guide meets us at the bus stop as promised. These are good signs.
Yulis is a wiry little chain-smoking guitar player with a long Bob Marley mane and two missing front teeth. After dinner he and some of his buddies play and sing, not only Bob Marley, but John Denver, and some traditional Spanish songs as well. We have a chuckle when he breaks into: “Almost heaven, west Toraja…” Joe had remarked as we switchbacked up and down the mountains on our last miles into Rantapao that the place looked like West Virginia with palm trees.
On our first morning Yulis leads us on a foray into the countryside to a local burial site. The hike isn’t difficult, winding along a dirt road past rice paddies and farms about four kilometers to its terminus. At the end of the road Yulis sits us down in a 
stone shelter that serves as a viewpoint for the little valley below and the sheer cliff on the other side, where the tombs are hewn out of the solid rock. Hand-carved, life-sized wooden statues called tau-tau stand guard over the entrance to each tomb.
“The funeral and burial are all that remain from a very strict class system,” he explains. “In the time of my grandfather there was still tribal warfare and even slavery, but that is no longer the case. Modern life and modern religions have changed all of that, but the size of a person’s funeral and the position and style of his tomb still today reflect his status in life.” Bigger is better.
Yulis knows that we want to attend a funeral. Back in town he meets a man on the street, and after a conversation out of our earshot he reports back. “You are very lucky. There is a funeral today, but we must go now.”
I think Joe has peed himself with excitement, but in truth I’m stoked myself.
“It is the custom that you bring a small gift. We will stop and get a box of clove cigarettes. That will be enough, and the family will be very happy with it.”
Yulis arranges transportation for us on the backs of motorbike taxis. We bounce over deeply pocked dirt roads up and down the hills ’til we come to a small village, now grown much larger with temporary buildings surrounding a large open area where the closed coffin is displayed. This is the Day of Reunion and Procession, one of several designated days making up the celebration. Our very hospitable hosts feed us tapioca leaves (good in small doses), goldfish, buffalo, pig skewers, tuak (palm wine) in hollow bamboo stalks, and Torajan coffee. They claim, and I’m on board, that this is the best coffee in the world.
Joe. Family have come from all over Sulawesi and even all Indonesia for this event. When we arrive, Yulis meets someone who directs us to one of the temporary shelters. The shelters have been fashioned of lashed bamboo, topped with impermeable thatched roofs, floored by planks covered with mats.
Our hosts are Coman and Sita, brother and sister, grandchildren of the deceased. Yulis does not know the English word “deceased” and always refers to the person rather impersonally as “the dead body”. He died four months ago. The dead body, as is the custom, remains in his house until the funeral. He is said to be 100 years old, although it would be very unusual for anyone in this country to live that long.
I look out from Coman and Sita’s shelter to view the hustle and bustle that is more like Rantapao than a tiny farm village. New people are arriving every minute, greeting each other with bright surprised eyes. I don’t understand the spoken
words, but the eyes and the body language are like our own culture. An auntie, speechless with wonder, reunites with a little niece, now grown with a child of her own. Cousins embrace as their minds flash back to a shared childhood. All the while children are running and playing everywhere. No one regrets that the reunion is a funeral.
Coman and Sita speak excellent English.
“Do you live in Toraja?”
“No,” says Coman, “I’m a dentist in Makassar. I don’t get back so much these days.”
“And you, Sita?”
“I work in an office in Surabaya. It’s been about two years since I’ve been here. And you, how do you come to be in Tana Toraja?”
“I’ve always wanted to travel to Indonesia, especially Sulawesi, and now that I’m retired I have the opportunity. I just want to thank you for your hospitality and for allowing us to attend your grandfather’s funeral.”
“You’re welcome. We are very pleased to have you here. We want the world to know about our culture. It is becoming more difficult to maintain our traditional culture, but these funerals are a very important way for us to do that, and we hope you will tell others about it. And take pictures, too.”
John. This is the Day of Procession. As the ceremonies are about to start, Coman leads us to a separate shelter. To our surprise we meet other westerners. Who are these people? What are they doing at “our” funeral?
They are travelers like us: a German couple, a Swede, and a family of monstrously large Latvian people. Young girls bring us trays of buffalo meat. It has a good beefy flavor, but there is a net calorie loss in the chewing. And tuak, I quickly acquire a taste for this beverage, which is closer to saki than chardonnay.
When it is time for the main procession, the MC calls out over the microphone to get everyone ready. Forty or fifty men in orange t-shirts surround the coffin in the center of the grounds. It is brightly decorated in traditional Torajan colors: brown, orange and custard. The men aren’t family, but have been hired as…coffin wranglers? They circle the coffin chanting. I don’t understand the words, but sometimes it feels mournful, sometimes festive.
Finally, they all move forward and pick up the coffin with its superstructure miniature of a traditional house. It is mounted on a grid of thick bamboo poles that sag under the weight. Then the men start carrying on as if they’re at football game. Everyone is generally laughing as they begin carrying the dead body in procession. Soon the men begin a tug of war–with the coffin. Sometimes the men on one end push against the other. Other times they decide to pull. The family invites me to take all the pictures I want, but to get the best ones I have to risk being trampled or forced over the edge of the adjacent cliff by the advancing procession: anything for a great shot.
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