A ceremony has taken place which sees families dress the bodies of their dead relatives – and even pop lit cigarettes into their mouths. The Toraja people of the mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, care for their loved ones long after they die. They believe that the line between life and death is part of a larger journey into the spiritual world. It can take years for some families except for lavish funerals, and until then, bodies can remain inside homes or in humble graves for months. People continue to talk and spend quality time with the corpses during this time and even “feed” them. The Toraja fear that if the spirit of their ancestors is unhappy, even in death, it will mean a bad rice harvest the following year. A body on display during today’s Ma’nene festival in Lembang (Image: Andri Saputra/AFP) As a result, every three years the villagers hold the eternal Ma’nene or Manene ceremony. It translates to “Care of the Ancestors” and takes place at the end of August. The dead in the area are preserved in formalin which helps prevent further decomposition. Images from today’s ceremony in Lembang show family members performing the traditional Ma’nene ritual of cleaning the preserved remains of relatives. During the festival, the bodies are exhumed and then lovingly dressed in clothes. The villagers can then take care of their coffins and repair and replace any broken elements of the structures. A previous Ma’nene festival held in Panggala (Image: Hariandi Hafid / SOPA Images/Sipa USA) While the sight of rigid, skeletal bodies being dolled up may seem strange to an outsider, the traditional ceremony allows the Toraja to show respect for their departed loved ones. Local children learn from a very young age to face death and accept it as part of a larger spiritual journey. Villagers will even proudly pose for family photos with the corpses they dress for Ma’nene. It is not unusual for preserved corpses to be invited to a meal to share a cigarette with their surviving family members. Families clean graves and change clothes of deceased relatives to honor their spirit (Image: Hariandi Hafid / SOPA Images/Sipa USA) The unique tradition has survived for centuries, despite the increasing modernization of the world. In 2017, photographer Claudio Sieber released a series of photographs to give the world an insight into the ancient tradition. Despite his initial reservations, he soon grew accustomed to the sight of the dead. “It’s very intimate, the little Ma’Nene rituals,” she told Huck Magazine. It’s not uncommon for family photos to include the bodies of dead relatives (Image: AFP) “I got really comfortable with the situation after maybe two or three days.” “I changed my view on it because for them it is life that surpasses death. It is not a sad moment.’ Any fear of imposition at the Ma’Nene festival was dispelled when he realized how open the Torajan people are. He met a man named Noel, who was organizing a funeral for his grandparents that would have almost 1000 guests, who told him: “It is an honor for us Torajans to welcome a foreign guest to the ceremony.” “Especially because a Boule – a Westerner – contributes well to a family’s prestige.” Contact our news team by emailing us at [email protected] For more stories like this, check out our news page.
