On a recent trip to Sulawesi- an island in the archipelago of Indonesia- I visited the creepiest place called Tana Toraja.
Up until as late as the 20th century the people of Tana Toraja in Sulawesi were still taking the heads of their enemies, untouched by the outside world.
The whole place seems to be obsessed with the dead, much like Varanasi in India, people come from all over to bury the dead here. They have an elaborate funeral ceremony which unfortunately includes slaughtering many, many, many animals. The more you can afford to slaughter, the wealthier you are/were .
The local Toraja people here believe that the dead can take material items with them to the afterlife so they buried people with lavish items. Thieves started plundering graves so they began hiding the dead in the rocks and caves and hanging them off cliffs.
I cycled around on some days exploring and I swear you can find these graves almost everywhere, I climbed a small hill that seemed like no one had been there in decades, sure as hell, I found a grave there!
Torajans traditionally believe that death is not a sudden, abrupt event, but a gradual process toward Puya (the land of souls) sometimes they keep the bodies of the deceased in their homes for months before the funeral service.
They also carve "tau tau" (wooden dolls resembling the dead person) out of wood to watch over the graves . Creepy as F@#!
To be honest, Im glad I got to see this place, but I didn't enjoy being there at all, I could often hear animals crying and I could smell the burnt hair and flesh as there are funeral ceremonies almost everyday, some days more than one. So I got the hell out of there!
Comments