Village where relatives are ‘brought back from the dead’ for Ma’nene ceremony
This is an insight into the Indonesian culture that believes family members cannot die, they just get sick.
The series of images by Claudio Sieber reveal the culture of the Toraja people and their way of accepting the death and loss of relatives, metro.co.uk reported.
The Toraja people live in the South Sulawesi region of Indonesia are known for keeping their dead relatives inside the family home for months and even decades after their death.
They allowed him to be a part of their Ma’nene ceremony, which translated from indigenous Indonesian means the ‘care of the ancestors’.
In Toraja culture, they believe that the line between life and death is infinite, so a person does not die but instead becomes a To Makula (sick person) and they treat them as if they are ill, not dead in order to respect them.
Their relatives bodies are preserved in formalin after they die to stop decomposition and decay, dressed in fine clothes and presented with gifts to keep in their coffin.
Once preserved, they are kept in their own room in the family home and regularly visited and even fed to keep their spirit happy.
Torajans learn from a very young age to deal with death and to accept it as part of the journey.
The Toraja believe if their ancestor’s spirit is unhappy it will mean a bad rice harvest in the following year.
Their culture has managed to survive for over nine centuries, despite the increasing modernization of the world around them and financial pressures that creep into their lives.
The Toraja people do not believe in quiet grief, but instead throw massive parties and feasts for the dead, and talk and laugh with them as if they are still alive. It is not uncommon for the preserved corpses to be invited to lunch of share a cigarette with their surviving family members.
Funeral ceremonies are incredibly important to the Torajans and are often held months, or even decades after the death of a person to give the family of the deceased time to raise enough money for the expensive funeral ceremonies.
Many families go into debt in order to hold the extravagant funeral ceremony.
The funeral ceremonies, or Rambu Solo, will see hundreds of buffalo sacrificed to help the soul of the deceased have a quick and peaceful journey to Puya- the afterlife.