The Ma’nene Festival: An Odd Tradition Practiced in Indonesia Every Three Years

Every race and religion observe traditions that some people may find outrageous. However, before we begin to criticize and react violently, we must first try to understand why they practice certain rituals.

Warning: Contains Graphic Content

The Torajans from the mountainous region of Tana Toraja on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, practice a tradition that other nations may find very peculiar. Every three years for the past century, they exhume the bodies of their deceased loved ones—both young and old—then clean and dress them in fashionable clothes.

This is part of the sacred Ma’nene Festival or the “Ceremony of Cleaning Corpses.” Contrary to what others might think, it is actually a celebration of life and a means to strengthen their bonds with the dead. The Torajans believe that by doing this, the spirits of the departed will bless them for their kind gesture.

Apparently, an animal hunter named Pong Rumasek was trekking the mountains when he discovered a human corpse decaying under a tree about a hundred years ago. He dressed the cadaver and then gave it a proper burial. Rumasek later attributed his good fortune to the kind act he did for the abandoned corpse. Since then, the Torajans adopted the Ma’nene.

Although the majority of the 650,000 Torajan people are either Christians or Muslims, a minority still observes “Aluk Todolo” or “The Way of the Ancestors.”

The people would then parade the corpse of their relatives throughout the village. They follow a straight path believing that it will connect them with Hyang. Hyang is a spiritual being with supernatural powers who only moves in straight lines. While the parade transpires, some fix the graves and coffins of the dead.

The Torajans will place the body of the dead in a large cave on top of a cliff until the funeral rite is finished. This is when the dead’s journey to “the land of the souls” begins.

Before, effigies called tau tau were on the balcony of the tombs, watching over the cadavers.

Torajans created them for members who had high status in the community. However, many of them were stolen; hence, some families decided to just keep them in their homes.

Torajans consider the obsequy as one of the most vital and expensive occasions in their community. They save money their entire lives to afford an extravagant send-off to “Puya” or the afterlife and have a decent burial. Other families even fall into debts just to pay for the interment.

And, sometimes, they delay the funeral years after a person died. They refer to them as “a person who is sick” or “the person who is asleep” until then. For the Torajans, a person is not dead until they are buried.

The ritual lasts for several days.

They start the festival by putting animals such as pigs and buffaloes through trials of strength before they offer them as a sacrifice.

Then the people place the horns of the animals outside their homes. A family that has several horns adorning their property means that the deceased had a high status in the community.

However, family arguments arise whenever they discuss the final resting place of the deceased.

Torajans think that the dead should be buried in the place where they died or in the area where they’ve spent most of their lives. According to Michaela Budiman, author of Contemporary Funeral Rituals of Sa’dan Toraja, conflicts among families occur when they deviate from this tradition.

Budiman wrote:

“There are cases when a husband and wife wish to be buried together, a request which is nonetheless interpreted as a breach of loyalty to one’s own family, for such an individual puts the love for his or her partner above the bonds to their own family.

“It is remarkable that in some cases the families will quarrel where the departed should be buried. A person buried in the “wrong place” is known as a topusa [lost person].

“Opening the door to the liang [tomb where they are buried], which would enable the transfer of the departed, could only be performed during the Ma’nene ritual, which paid homage to the ancestors.”

Torajans firmly believe that a person’s soul must return to their homes. If a person died while on a long journey, the family must travel to the place where the person died, and accompany his or her soul back to the village.

If a child dies before teething, the baby is wrapped in a cloth and placed in “Baby Trees.” These are small, hollowed out spaces in the trunks of growing trees. They believe that the child’s soul will become one with the tree as it heals.

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H/T: UNILAD, Daily Mail, DM

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