https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/travel/torajan-death-rituals-indonesia.html
Relatives retrieve a coffin during a ceremony in the village of Lembang Ma’dong.
The World Through a Lens
In Indonesia, a Blurred Boundary Between the Living and the Dead
The Toraja people of southern Sulawesi, one of Indonesia’s largest islands, are known for their elaborate death rituals, which include preserving and exhuming the dead.
Relatives retrieve a coffin during a ceremony in the village of Lembang Ma’dong.Credit.
Published Dec. 14, 2020Updated Jan. 9, 2021
Editor’s note: This photo essay contains images of human remains that may disturb some readers.
Sobbing beside her family’s grave in the mountainous subdistrict of Rindingalo, Odiya Sulu, 38, clutched a photograph of her mother and spoke haltingly about how much she missed her. Her mother, Elis Sulu, had died in 2015 at age 65. But a year later, in 2016, when her coffin was carried outside and opened by relatives, her body wa