Nestled on the northwest port of the Gulf of Boni, the port at Palopo provides a gate way to the ancient Toraja and Bugi cultures. Suluwesi is a largely Muslim country but the highland Toraja people are Christian.  We spent the day visiting traditional villages with Tongkonan houses and ancient burial sites and traditions.  The houses are decorated with geometric carvings some dating back 500 years.  But let’s start at the beginning…

We anchored in harbor and went ashore by tenders.  After leaping up a 3 foot step to the pier we were greeted by traditional music and dancers.  We were quickly surrounded towns people welcoming the first cruise ship of the year.  Not many cruise ships come here so the locals were looking to have their pictures taken with the visitors.  The bus ride took us over a long and winding road to a 900 meter pass over the mountains.  The road is narrow at best so passing oncoming traffic is always an adventure.  Fortunately we were in smaller buses, unfortunately that made the long ride a bit less comfortable.  Switchback after switchback passed and after 1 1/2 hours we stopped at a small village to use the primitive facilities.  Some braved it, we did not, instead choosing to walk in the village to take pictures.  

Back onboard for more switchbacks and over the pass to the Toraja territory where we began to see tiered rice fields and the traditional homes.  These are shaped like boats to remind the generations of the ancestors who came to these shores from Vietnam and Cambodia, thousands of years ago.  With no homes, they turned their boats into the roofs of their original homes and rice storage buildings.  Our first stop took us on a walk through a typical village.  All the traditional homes and storage buildings face north to their ancestral home.  They are on stilts and entered by an outside staircase or bamboo ladder.  The designs often include roosters, buffalo and pigs in addition to the geometrics.  Colors were reds, yellows, orange, black and blue.  Early roofs were made of bamboo layered over the years to avoid leading while modern homes are likely to have metal roofs.  Even villages with some modern homes will have at least one traditional house and traditional storage building.

We also encountered our first water buffalo.  Here the water buffalo is a royal member of the family and not a beast of burden.  They actually watch the people work in the fields while munching on grass and cooling down in mud.  All the planting and harvesting is done by hand without animal labor for help.  Buffalo have their own wooden shelters in the village and on one occasion we saw one being pampered and washed to cool down and soften the hide.  Throughout all the villages we also ran across lots and lots of pigs.  We finally figured out where the saying happy as pig in s*** came from, as evidenced by the enclosed picture.

As we walked to rear of the village we began the portion of the tour that Sue refers to as “the Day of the Dead.”  Ceremonies around death are a huge part of life in these mountain cultures.  In one village, a man died 5 months ago and the funeral was just taking place.  A huge portion of town is devoted to temporary housing for family members and townspeople to come to grieve and show their respects.  The funeral themselves can take from 4 days to 1 month depending on discussions and decisions made by the family and village elders.  Water buffalo, perhaps 50, are sacrificed throughout the ceremony.  Meet is eaten during this time but also cured and dried on the rooftops to be distributed to participants to take home.  

The burial sites are either in or at the base of limestone cliffs. They may be in caves, or hang on the side of the cliff or be a mausoleum at the base. The common feature of all the sites were the carved funeral effigies, (tau tau), which are dressed and placed at the door of the chambers or on the hanging coffins.  The faces are carved to resemble the deceased.  Some are frighteningly realistic.  Eyes are of buffalo bone.  They have 5 and 10 year ceremonies during which the clothes of all the effigies are replaced.  They affectionately refer to the deceased as oma and opa.  People here live to be 85-100 quite regularly—great mountain air, clean water and healthy vegetables and fruits as part of their diet.  Again, a rather poor country where there are no homeless and no goes hungry.  Unlike some of the other parts of Indonesia, the island remains a heavily vegetated and protected rainforest, punctuated by “Christmas trees” brought in by the Dutch.  The vegetation is quite gorgeous with unique ferns, palms, and orchids.

Our trip from here took us to several other villages where we observed other burial sites, all unique and many very colorful.  We also got to watch some traditional handicrafts being made and had lunch at a very nice hotel/restaurant.  Our trip back to port took us up the hill to go back down the hill.  Now the winding, twisty road was in the dark with occasional rain so at some point we wondered if we would soon have our own tau taus.  Really we never worried on this part of the trip but a wrong turn in town left us at the end of a narrow where the bus driver decided to turn around rather than back out.  Straight ahead and to the right was water, to the left a house and as we turned we had to cope with the pole in the way.  We figure we went back and fourth at least 25 times inching our way out.  Every time the driver put on the brakes going forward the bus slipped a little  and those on the left of the bus were quite panicked.  We turned around to much applause and got a police escort back to the port.  We were the last tender to return to the ship after a long, fun, tiring day.

At sea today, Komodo dragons tomorrow and then two days on Bali.  Cheers.