Tana Toraja, located on the mountainous island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, is one of the rare places that maintains its ancient culture. Despite being Christians, the people do not allow their religion to get entangled with their animist belief Aluk To Dolo “Way of the Ancestors”.
On some houses, you cannot skip the horns of buffalos which show you how wealthy a family is but what easily catches everyone’s attention is the wooden piles with red and black designs.
Built in an old-fashioned traditional way, the Tongkonan as they are called, are houses built to preserve the dead until they are properly buried in large ceremonies. This practice is guided by the belief that as long as the person is in a house, he remains sick, not dead. Derived from the name Tongkon, the process…
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