As part of a ritual to show ‘love and respect, The Torajan people of Indonesia proudly display their dead relatives after digging them up and dressing them in new clothes in an ancient ritual every three years.
Every three years, the tribe from Sulawesi island exhume their dead, who they wash and dress in fresh clothes and then pose for family photographs in a festival known as Ma’nene.
The ritual, which translates as ‘The Ceremony of Cleaning Corpses,’ has been going for more than a century.
One of the most important events in the lives of the Torajan people, an ethnic group indigenous to the mountainous region of Tana Toraja, is the funeral.
Most save money their entire lives so they can have a respectable burial for themselves or family members.
In some cases the deceased’s funeral is held several weeks or even years after their death so the family have can have time to save up and pay for an extravagant funeral.
Another important element of the Ma’nene festival is replacing and repairing the coffins to stop bodies from decomposing.
The Torajan people live high in the
mountains of Sulawesi in Indonesia. The area is so remote that many of
the villages were completely autonomous until the 1970s, when the area
was exposed to the outside world by Dutch missionaries.
The villagers are encouraged to marry within their family – but only beyond the fourth cousin.
In the Torajan belief system, death is not a final step, but just one step in an ongoing spiritual life.
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