Toraja Funeral Celebration: Exploring Tradition and Culture in Indonesia 🇮🇩 Sulawesi Travel Vlog

Exploring Toraja On Our Own:    • Culture Shock in TORAJA Sulawesi🇮🇩Indonesi...  
Exploring Toraja With a Guide:    • Visiting a Dead Person in Toraja, Sulawesi...  
Our homestay: https://www.homestay-toraja.com/
Our guides on Instagram: @toraja_local_guide @nepakkumanjafamilyhome

In this Indonesia Travel Vlog, we finally make it to a funeral ceremony in Toraja! The funeral ceremonies in Toraja are famous because of how elaborate they are. They involve the sacrifice of buffalo (sometimes hundreds of buffalo) and the funerals can cost hundreds of thousands of USD. You can see in our earlier videos how much the buffalo cost and more of the Torajan culture.
We left our homestay early to buy a gift for the family of the deceased. Our guide had us buy a carton of cigarettes to give them. We then continued to drive our motorbike through Toraja until we came to the funeral. Our guide brought traditional funeral clothes for us to wear which was nice. We put those on and then entered. The funeral started with all the guests entering. Some of them were carrying pigs as a gift for the family. Many of the pigs would later be eaten for lunch by all of the guests!
As all of the guests were arriving, our guide took us around to show us some other areas at the funeral. There was a huge kitchen full of tons of locals volunteering to cook food for all the guests. It was amazing to see how many people volunteered their time to help the family. Next to the kitchen there was a soursop fruit tree and a cacao tree. Our guide cracked open the cacao so we could try the fruit inside. It was amazing that it tasted so sweet and fruity - the opposite of cacao!
Next we walked up the hill to the place where the men were preparing the pigs as food for lunch. They took the donated pigs, butchered them, and cook them inside a bamboo stick. The bamboo pork sticks are called papillon and are traditional from Toraja. We thought some of the things there were really interesting like the balloons for children and that the family had their own videographer to make a video of the funeral ceremony. Our guide then brought us inside the traditional Tongkonan house to visit with the deceased. He had only been living in the house for 2 months which our guide said is pretty quick to do the funeral already.
Then it was lunchtime. We ate some traditional Torajan Indonesia food like the bamboo roasted pork and a spicy mushroom dish. This was actually our first time eating with our hands too!
After lunch it was time to prepare for the buffalo sacrifice. At this funeral there was only one buffalo to be sacrificed, however some funerals can have hundreds of buffalo. It was really hard for us to watch as we had never seen anything like that before....but it was also so interesting that there were even children there watching it so you can see how it is so normal for them as they're brought up in this culture. It was so scary to hear how dangerous it is to be the one to sacrifice the buffalo, but it was nice to hear that the buffalo meat is then shared with the whole community.
It was hard to watch, but we were glad to learn more about this interesting culture.
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00:01 Intro
00:32 Leaving the Homestay
00:56 Buying a Gift
01:14 Driving in Toraja
01:42 Arriving at the Funeral Ceremony
01:48 Changing into Funeral Clothes
02:36 Funeral Guests Arriving
03:03 Gift Exchange
03:48 Family Entering the Funeral
04:12 Welcome Drinks and Cookies
04:54 Pig Donations at Funeral
05:33 Toraja Funeral Kitchen
06:04 Trying Fresh Cacao Fruit
07:25 Preparing the Pigs in Bamboo Sticks
07:57 Funeral Balloons
08:06 Torajan Funeral Videographer
08:32 Visiting the Deceased
10:28 Lunch Time
10:58 Bamboo Roasted Pork
11:58 Trying the Torajan Pork
12:16 Spicy Torajan Mushroom
12:54 Trying to Eat With Our Hands
14:10 Getting Ready for the Buffalo Sacrifice
14:59 Scary Stories of Buffalo Sacrifices
15:51 Buffalo Sacrifice
16:21 Thoughts After the Sacrifice

#torajautara #tanatoraja #sulawesi #buffalo #funeral #indonesia #culture