like solar and wind. it's great to see. duncan burt there. and now time for our world. sahar zand reports from the toraja region of sulawesi, in indonesia, where the dead are a constant presence. tradition dictates that when a family member dies their body is preserved. it can often take months, sometimes even years, before a funeral takes place. a warning that, from the beginning, this programme contains images of corpses, which some viewers may find disturbing. it's the great unspoken. a taboo. something that i've had to face up to recently myself. most of us don't know how to think or talk about death. but there are some people who do think they know. on the indonesian island of toraja, centuries—old customs make the dead a constant part of day—to—day life. i have come here to learn more about these remarkable practices, which blur the line between this world and the next. a morbid obsession? or a healthier way to deal with the grief of losing a loved one? tana toraja in indonesia is an extraordinary place. here, ancient animist beliefs intertwine with new religions, resulting in unique rituals. at this traditional torajan funeral, friends and family gather to celebrate the life of a local wealthy man called dengan, who died over two years ago. but here is the strange thing. as far as his family and everybody else here are concerned, dengan is still alive. torajans have a strong desire to stay connected to their dead loved ones. in spirit and in body. to see what this means in practice, i went to visit a torajan family. hello. nice to meet you. this man is 86 and his family take care of him. he died more than two years ago. here, it takes months and sometimes years, until a funeral actually takes place. in the meantime, families keep the deceased in the house and care for them on a daily basis. they treat them as if they were sick. torajans traditionally rub special leaves and herbs over a body to preserve it. nowadays, a chemical called formalin is often injected into the body to embalm it. there is a powerful odour of musk and the chemical. when my father died, we buried him in two days. it was all very sudden, it was all very bam, bam. and to be honest with you, a few years on, i still feel i haven't adjusted. it was just too sudden. i am still in a bit of a shock. does this help you? what's really incredible, none of these kids seem to be fazed by the fact that there is a dead person lying here. everybody is so calm. he will remain here until his family have saved enough money for a lavish funeral. during their lives, torajans work hard to accumulate wealth. but rather than saving for a luxurious life, they save for a grand departure from this earth. the wealthier they are, the larger and more elaborate the funerals. some last for days. dengan was a rich man. and his funeral lasted seven days. animal sacrifice is a fundamental part of this tradition. buffaloes are a very important element to the torajan funerals, because they are believed to be the carriers of the deceased's soul into the afterlife. the meat is eaten at the funeral feast, and the buffalo horns create create homes and tombs of the deceased. a symbol of wealth and status. the sacrifice, it's one part of helping your soul to reincarnation. $50,000 was spent on dengan‘s funeral. roughly ten times more than the average annual income here. they sacrificed 2a buffaloes, more than a0 pigs, as well as feeding and accommodating hundreds of guests. the funeral is one way to make your soul get to reincarnation. soon, the soul of the poor people will be getting a little bit longer. and the soul of the rich people, they can have a short way to reincarnation. even at this point, dengan‘s funeral is not complete. only when his coffin is carried to the top of this special platform, is he finally considered dead. according to ancient animist beliefs here, this is the point where the soul finally ascends to the cosmos. from there, it watches over living relatives, bringing them good fortune, as long as the families take proper care of their dead. for centuries, the torajans have been laying their dead to rest in caves like this. yet another place where the afterlife connects with this one. this cave winds for two kilometres. and it's pretty full. even here, friends and families bring necessities for their dead relatives. in a tradition predating photography, statues of dead noblemen and women are carefully carved out of wood. most people here are farmers, and their average income is around $5,000 a year. it's clear that for torajans, the process of dying and being reincarnated is far smoother if you are rich. these sculptures are dressed in the clothes, jewellery and even the hair of the deceased. silent sentinels looking out over this one from another. here, the physical relationship between the dead and the living continues long after death. even after burials. people are coming out of the church now, and they are all shaking hands in their traditional manner. they do this and then they touch their chest. and they're getting ready for a less usual ceremony. the village leader explains that the ritual is called manene, also known as the cleansing of the corpses. once every couple of years, families bring the coffins of long departed relatives out of their graves and open them up for a big family reunion. these are the close relatives of a woman called maria, and they are here for the cleansing. one of the guests is a torajan professor of sociology. it means doing something for someone beloved who has passed away. the family will bring maria out of this tomb for the first time today. chanting. they're bringing maria out now. we're just waiting for them to open her coffin. i'm feeling a bit nervous, to be honest. i had to come out to get some distance from it. there really was no escaping death. i watched as they slaughtered pigs. and the final sacrifice. a buffalo. the coffin is finally opened. once again, that strong odour of musk and formalin filled the air. thank you. they want me to show what she looked like before and what she looks like now. she died three years ago and got buried two years ago. they kept her in the house for one year. maria's covered in her most treasured possessions. relatives touch her as a greeting. i'm going to try to touch her hair, just as everybody else does, as a sign of respect. she feels... she feels very hard. the hairfeels like normal. still very soft. i couldn't help but wonder how children feel seeing their mother this. her eldest son seemed very calm. i don't see any more sign of grief. it's just normal. it's just the body is here and it's normal. when you couldn't see the body, when it was inside the coffin, even i was shaking. i was a lot more nervous. and everybody seemed more upset. another guest particularly close to maria is esther, her daughter—in—law. how do you think this helps you deal with the grief? but for me, i want to remember my relatives, my dad, i want to remember him when he was alive. i'm worried that if i see him dead, i will — his identity will change in my mind. many of these practices are slowly disappearing. the majority of them converted from the old animist religion to christianity after dutch missionaries arrived less than a century ago. but here, the two can and do coexist. they're wrapping maria in this white sheet. this is a symbol of changing her clothes. in some villages they literally change the outfit into a new fashionable one. but here, because they are christians, they don't want to mess around too much with the corpse. at the beginning of christianity here, no manene, no funeral. it was forbidden by the missionaries, but later, maybe in the 50s, this starts again, because at the time, it was very difficult to make people become christian. all this is so different to how i've dealt with my father's death. or so i thought. what did you do to your father? we buried him. buried him, yeah. and then until now? i visit his grave sometimes. you visit his grave sometimes. you did it in a different way. how? yeah. because you visit the grave of your father, because you still remember him as your father. and you still have an emotional relationship with him. you love your father. right? and that is the principle of manene. so perhaps the principles behind rituals here are not very different from most other cultures. remembering our dead is something most of us try to do. torajans don't leave that to chance. and for them, there certainly appears to be a great comfort from their unique rituals around death. hello there. with clear skies for many of us overnight, sunday dawns on quite a chilly note. there will be a touch of frost for some rural parts. this was the sunset on saturday evening, taken by one of our weather watchers in south ayrshire, showing the beautiful blue skies. cloud will increase across this part of the world as we head through the day on sunday, so turning cloudier across northern and western scotland, with a few showers. also some cloud across southern counties of england, and for northern ireland, too. it is, of course, the london marathon on sunday. after a fairly fresh start to the day, by the afternoon, temperatures in the mid—teens. it should be fairly cloudy, but we are expecting it to remain dry. there is just the outside chance, though, of a passing shower in london. so this is 9am, then. you can see quite a lot of cloud across devon and cornwall, up towards east anglia, too, but there will be some brightness around. temperatures around eight or nine degrees at 9:00am, with some cloud across northern england and southern scotland, too. northern ireland starts off a bit cloudier, and that cloud also pushing in across the west of scotland, with some scattered showers across northern parts of scotland. now, moving through the day, then, not a bad day for most of us. it is looking predominantly dry, probably the best of the sunshine in a swathe through parts of northern england, the midlands, and across wales. a bit more cloud to the south of that, but most places staying dry. just that small hint of perhaps a passing shower in london for the marathon, of course, temperatures here up to around 16 degrees for the middle of the afternoon. further north, more in the way of cloud, and outbreaks of rain, too, down to the fact that we've got this frontal system approaching from the north. that will bring quite a change in weather type as we head through into the new working week. first thing monday morning, in the countryside it, will be very chilly in the far north, particularly across parts of scotland. could be as low as minus four degrees first thing in the morning. and during the day, that cold air filters in across parts of scotland, then into northern ireland, too. some wintry showers in the north. further south, across england and wales, cloud, outbreaks of rain. but we are still in the milder air here, around 16 degrees or so, whereas further north, only around 6—9 celsius. then, as those fronts slip away towards the south, heading towards tuesday, colder air pushes down across all of us, so we return to a quite wintry feel during the course of tuesday, i think, with that cold, northerly wind. temperatures at best for most of us around eight or nine degrees. could be up to around 13, though, in the far south—east. so that wintry theme continues into the middle of the week. still cold for wednesday and thursday, with wintry showers and night—time frosts. hello, my name is tom donkin. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. here are our top stories: tight security across france. tens of thousands of police and soldiers on patrol, as the country prepares for the presidential elections. a day of mourning declared in afghanistan, after the deadly attack on an army base that left more than 100 soldiers killed or wounded. spanish emergency teams rush to stop an oil slick threatening the canary islands, after a ferry hits a pier damaging underwaterfuel pipes. science fights back. doctor who joins the worldwide protests to combat what is seen as a political attack on hard facts. and ice, ice, maybe. we take a look at the ski resorts rolling out new technology to prevent a snow no—show.