Personal Religion and Magic in Mamasa, West Sulawesi: The Search for Powers of Blessing from the...

Personal Religion and Magic in Mamasa, West Sulawesi

Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor

Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde

Edited by

Rosemarijn Hoefte (kitlv, Leiden)Henk Schulte Nordholt (kitlv, Leiden)

Editorial Board

Michael Laffan (Princeton University)Adrian Vickers (The University of Sydney)

Anna Tsing (University of California Santa Cruz)

VOLUME 308

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Personal Religion and Magic in Mamasa, West Sulawesi

The Search for Powers of Blessing from the Other World of the Gods

By

Kees Buijs

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change.

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Cover illustration: Fire place with lalikan plus extra stones for pairan. Photograph by Kees Buijs.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Buijs, Kees, 1944- author. Title: Personal religion and magic in Mamasa, West Sulawesi : the search for powers of blessing from the

other world of the gods / by Kees Buijs. Description: Leiden : Boston : Brill, 2016. | Series: Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut Voor

Taal- en land- en Volkenkunde ; VOLUME 308 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2016036862 (print) | lccn 2016041801 (ebook) | isbn 9789004326569 (hardback : alk.

paper) | isbn 9789004326576 (E-book) Subjects: lcsh: Toraja (Indonesian people)--Religion. | Mythology, Indonesian. | Magic--Indonesia. Classification: lcc BL2123.T67 B845 2016 (print) | lcc BL2123.T67 (ebook) | ddc 299/.92226--dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016036862

The realization of this publication was made possible by the support of kitlv (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies).

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Contents

List of Figures viiMap of West Sulawesi x

Introduction 1

1 Religion and Magic 7

2 Headlines of the Religion of the Toraja’s in West Sulawesi 16

3 Pairan, Individual Religious Responsibility 43

4 Stones and Incantations, Vestiges from the Other World of the Gods 99

5 Pairan and Magic, Personal Religion in Daily Life 139

Glossary 147 Bibliography 156 Index 160

List of Figures

1 Showing-off his invulnerability, obtained by powerful stones 22 Bapak Bongga Barana’ in his kitchen at the fireplace with the five stones 33 In the traditional religion deceased people of high nobility were put upright for

some days in the house where they had lived. This tradition, called dipatadong-kon, is still practiced nowadays 17

4 In the small aluk communities especially chickens and pigs are used for offerings to the gods 18

5 During funeral rituals buffaloes are slaughtered 206 A tokeada’ in Mamasa, Nenek Pualilin 227 A toburake in action with her attributes, a small drum, the kamaru, and a

porcelain saucer, the pindan 238 A rice priestess, toso’bok. She uses also the small drum, kamaru 249 A tomebalun, here the man with the white band around his head has the task

to wrap the body of a deceased person. He is assisted by many men from the family 25

10 The toburake indo’ Galo’, also called indo’ Koke, uses her kamaru 2711 A rattan frame, rakki, is used for the offering of paisung to the gods in the

heavens 3012 The two stones next to the fire in the lalikan are used for the offerings 3013 The toburake uses her attributes, pindan and kamaru, to clean the house in the

ritual ditobangngi barang 3214 In the kitchen the food is prepared. This is also the place for the offerings at the

three stones in the fireplace 3315 Many people who attend a mortuary ritual bring a pig as a gift for the deceased.

All those gifts are counted and mentioned in the passerekan ritual 3416 The most important buffalo is slaughtered at the simbuang batu. In the

Mamasa area this is usually the only stone in the simbuang ritual 4017 The kitchen is the centre of the family 4518 Traditional adat house 4719 The lentong posts rest on stones. The pelelen beams connect horizontally the

lentong posts 4920 Banua layuk, the adat house of the highest category, inhabited by the highest

nobility 5021 The tomambubung started to call out the eulogy on the house walking and

running from the highest point of the roof backwards 5222 One of the oldest traditional adat houses 54

viii List of Figures

23 The beam of the central badong goes from the front of the house back and is anchored in the petuo 55

24 Banua longkarrin, constructed without pelelen or longa. It is used by the common people 56

25 The banua sussu’ has the oldest woodcarvings, without colour. In front a wooden block used to unpeel rice grains by way of stamping it with long round poles 58

26 The fireplace with the lalikan plus extra stones for pairan. The rack, para-para, is made above the fireplace. To the right a water container, busso 59

27 A kitchen of an ordinary house. In the fireplace six stones are used for cooking 63

28 In modern times the tradition of angka’ is still used for a bride and bridegroom. On the small table lie the angka’ of buku siruk and buku lampa 65

29 The rice priest, toso’bok, is the first one who puts the peleko in the ground 7630 Graves of the nobility in the middle of rice fields 7631 A pig is slaughtered and the blood goes with the rice grains in the rice field to

obtain a rich harvest at the end 8032 Buffaloes are guided with a rope through the nose. When they have white spots,

their value is very high 8133 The spotted buffalo, tedong doti, is only found in the area of Toraja 8234 A black water buffalo can be used to work in a rice field 8335 Women show in which way they were calling men in the rice field during the

ma’dondi ritual 8536 The head-hunters return early morning after the ‘raid’ in 1979 8837 During the ritual the head-hunters dance in the village Batarirak was accompa-

nied by the sound of drums, gandang 8938 The grains are first sprinkled with the blood of a slaughtered pig, in order to

request the powers of blessing from the gods, the dewata, before they are sowed in the field. This pairan is performed by the rice priest 91

39 Ambe’ Sampe, living in the traditional aluk, has almost no trust in the pairan of Christian people 96

40 An important road between two regions is badly damaged in a landslide Elderly people are convinced that lack of pairan has caused this damage 98

41 Bapak Depparinding belongs to the nobility 10142 The Mayor inspires awe with many people because of his powers stones, balo’-

balo’. He wears them under his shirt on his bare skin 10243 The burial house tedong-tedong 10544 The wooden boxes in the shape of water buffaloes are filled with bones and

skulls in the burial house tedong-tedong 106

ixList of Figures

45 The lalikan with a cooking pan. The two stones in the front part of the fireplace are used for pairan offerings 108

46 Ne’ Pampangkaraeng, also called Ambe’ Arru after his first child, lived until his death in the traditional religion, the aluk toyolo. Here he plays the tuli bond-esan, a traditional musical instrument in Mamasa used to bring ill women in trance as a healing procedure 109

47 Obtaining medicine by stirring water and power stones with a Toraja knife. The sharp edge of the knife must point to the objective 111

48 Power stones are usually kept in a red cloth, bound around the waist, mostly not visible under one’s shirt 137

Map of West Sulawesi

BRUNEI

Java SeaBanda

Sea

CelebesSea

Indian OceanDenpasar

Kupang

Ambon

Surabaya

UjungpandangSemarang

Cilacap

Cirebon

Palembang

Pekanbaru

Medan

Java

Sumatra

Madura

Kalimantan

Borneo

Timor

Sulawesi(Celebes)

M A L A Y S I A

JAKARTA

BRUNEI

Java SeaBanda

Sea

CelebesSea

Indian OceanDenpasarpasapasar

KupanggKK

Ambon

SurabayayySuraSurab

UjungpandangSemarang

Cilacapcapacap

CirebonCirCir

alembangPalal bb

PekannbaruanPePe

MedanMedanMedan

Java

Sumatra

Madura

Kalimantan

neoBornn

Timor

ulawesiSulawesulawesisiCelebes)(CelebeCelebe

A L A Y S I AM YY

JAKARTAARTAARTAAA

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Introduction

Three Remarkable Experiences

1 InvulnerabilityIt’s June 1989. My wife and I were underway to Mamasa. Mamasa is the central town of a district in West Sulawesi with the same name (see Chapter 2). We departed early morning from the coastal town Polewali because the road through the mountain area in the Mamasa district was very bad. Usually it took six to seven hours to cover the 90 kilometres.

Halfway, in the small village Tamalantik, the driver stopped to buy some cigarettes. While we were waiting in the car, we saw an old man on the road. He was wearing a long Toraja sarong and a small bag for his betel chew. Usu-ally elderly people don’t speak Indonesian, but I liked to practice a little bit my understanding of the Toraja language.

To my amazement, however, he opened his betel bag and took a knife in a wooden sheath out of the bag. Then he grabbed the knife and seemingly started to stab himself in his arm. Astonished, I understood that it was exactly what he was doing, stabbing himself and with force! He pushed the sharp point of the knife deep in the skin of his arm, without penetrating it (Figure 1).

Other people had joined us. Somebody said, ‘The old man wants to be great!’ Another man called, ‘He wants to show that he is invulnerable!’

Everybody agreed that the old man had to possess special, powerful stones. Somebody mentioned the specific Toraja name for those stones, balo’-balo’. He explained that they give the owner invulnerability, kekebalan, and impervious-ness, keka’basan, for pointed weapons (see Chapter 4).

2 Strange EventsOur experience with the old man on the road to Mamasa reminded us of an event that we experienced several years ago. In 1980 my family and I returned from our leave1 in the Netherlands. Arriving in Jakarta we already heard about strange things happening in our place of residence, Mamasa. It was said that one of the prominent men in the church and in the society, Bapak Moses, was being disturbed in his house by strange occurrences. Sometimes small stones were flying through a closed room. Suddenly sand could be found in a sauce-pan and clothes were torn in a closed wardrobe.

1 I worked in Mamasa from 1978 until the end of 1982 to assist the Christian church in that area, the Gereja Toraja Mamasa.

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The family, where these events took place, belonged to the Christian church. They asked the reverend and some other people of their congregation to come to their house to pray. Someone who was present at that time told me that, while they were gathered in a closed room and were praying, suddenly the radio started to play and pebbles flew through the room. A glass was broken.

When we arrived in Mamasa, we heard that several days ago the events stopped as unpredictably as they had started. People whispered that some sort of magic had been used, probably incantations that are meant to harm someone (see about incantations Chapter 4). It was said that, some years ago, Bapak Moses promised to help people to build a grave, but never fulfilled his promise.

3 Offerings in the Fireplace of the KitchenIn August 2012 I visited the village Batarirak where I used to come regularly in the time I stayed in Mamasa. In this village I witnessed in 2002 a big tradi-tional funeral. I knew the deceased man from several conversations that we had about the traditional Mamasa religion and culture, in which he lived until his death. I had a good relationship with him. When his burial took place, his

Figure 1Showing-off his invulnerability, obtained by powerful stones.

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family invited me to attend all the rituals of the funeral, which lasted several days. They asked me to record everything for them on video.

When I visited the family again in 2012, I would like to learn something re-garding the traditional religion of the Toraja’s, especially the way it is experi-enced by people who still live in it. The eldest son of the man who was buried in 2002, Bapak Bongga Barana’, still remembered me and he was willing to explain many things about his personal belief in the gods of his, traditional, religion.

He first took me to the kitchen at the back of his house. There he showed me the fireplace where the meals for his family were cooked (Figure 2). I knew that the cooking in the old Toraja houses always took place on three stones in the fireplace. However, when I saw the fireplace that Bapak Bongga Barana’ showed me, I was amazed. In this fireplace I did not see three but five stones. It appeared that this was exactly the reason why I had been invited to see the kitchen. When I asked if the extra stones were necessary because of his big family, so that more pans could be put on the fire, Bapak Bongga Barana’ gave an interesting explanation. No, he said. Those extra stones have a special func-tion in my religion. We don’t use them in the first place for cooking, but to bring offerings to the gods. Here I slaughter regularly a chicken to ask them for blessings for my children and grandchildren.

Bapak Bongga Barana’ is convinced that his religious actions in the kitchen and especially at the stones in the fireplace, are of the utmost importance

Figure 2 Bapak Bongga Barana’ in his kitchen at the fireplace with the five stones.

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for the wellbeing of his family. In this place, in the kitchen, he expresses his personal relationship with the gods. It is the central place of his personal religion.

Personal Expectation from the Other World

In the three events clearly powers were sought and employed, which are not available in the world where people live. They are sought and found in another world, the world of the gods. People said that the old man with the sharp knife pricking in his arm, was in the possession of stones that had given him invul-nerability as a result of powers originating from another world, connected with the stones. The events in the house of Bapak Moses were ascribed to some-body with the ability to put into action powers from another world through incantations. And the old man in Batarirak was convinced that the offering of a chicken at the fireplace in his kitchen could bring out protective and help-ing powers from the other world of the gods. By way of the slaughtering of a chicken he sought for blessings from the gods for his children.

In all these cases, people trust that gifts and powers originating from an-other world, the world of the gods, outside their own world, could be asked, be called up and employed. Those gifts and powers can be called blessings or powers of blessing from gods, who are believed to have their place in that other world. People who are looking for those gifts and powers are experiencing and practising their religion in a very personal way.

The religion of the Toraja’s has already been investigated in several stud-ies, see for instance the work of H. Nooy-Palm and J. Koubi. Especially the big rituals for life, summarized in the expression rambu tuka’, and the rituals for the dead, summarized in the expression rambu solo’, have received much attention in studies regarding the Toraja’s, which describe their traditional re-ligion (see Chapter 2). In those rituals large parts of the society are collectively involved. Together, people are looking for blessings from the other world of the gods.

The Central Question to be Answered

The question arises if and in which way the Toraja’s are also personally looking for blessings from the other world of the gods. Could the three events described at the beginning of this Introduction be taken as instances of the experience of the religion as a personal and individual relationship with the gods? Do the

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Toraja’s practise a personal religion in their daily life? Or could it be that the relationship with the gods is mainly expressed through attending the big and public rituals?

Do people know kinds of personal prayer to the gods as a sense of depen-dency? If that would be the case, in which way they give expression to it? To what extent and in which way the gods are approached, to obtain power, help, comfort, prosperity, healing, in daily life?2

If we can speak of an individual or personal expression of the religion, then we must also ask the question if special officials are in place to guide or to lead such religious activities, as it is the case in the public religion of the Toraja’s.3

Outline

In this study I hope to give an answer on the question regarding the occurrence of personal aspects in the traditional religion of the Toraja’s in the Mamasa area of West Sulawesi. The outline is as follows:

Chapter 1. In this Chapter I argue that openness for the ideas of the people is important. Some thoughts of M. Mauss and R. Schefold in relation to magic and religion are reproduced here.

Chapter 2. After a short sketch of the people and the environment where they live, I shall discuss some main issues of the public religion of the Toraja’s. In this chapter I shall especially consider the mean-ing of ‘the other world of the gods’ and the powers of blessing which are expected from that world.

Chapter 3. In Chapter 3 I investigate and discuss expressions of personal reli-gion through which powers of blessing are sought from the other world of the gods. The expression that receives special attention in this chapter, in regard to personal devoutness, is pairan.

Chapter 4. When religion has the characteristic that gifts and powers are sought from the other world of the gods, then occurrences as we saw at the beginning of the Introduction, can also be seen as

2 In this study I use the present tense, the ‘praesens ethnographicum’, concerning the tra-ditional religion, although the Christian religion has been accepted by the majority of the people in the last century.

3 See Chapter 2 for an explanation about the female priest toburake, the official in the society tokeada’, and the priest for the dead tomebalun.

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belonging to religion. I discuss in this Chapter the use of power stones and incantations which transfer power as magical acts in the scope of religion.

Chapter 5. As an evaluation of the investigation into the traditional religion in the Mamasa area, I give some characteristics of magic in re-spect to religion. Then I answer the central question of this study.

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chapter 1

Religion and Magic

The Other World, Religion and Magic

Always people have looked for solutions for problems that could not be an-swered in their own world. We enter with this matter the field of religion, where people direct their attention to another world outside their own social environment. They expect to obtain something from that other world which is not available or not understandable in their own world. The idea is that people can enter into a relationship with certain powers that exist at the other side, which might provide help in different ways. We might say that those powers give blessings. This search for powers of blessing in another world outside the own social environment forms the core of each religion. It is obvious that the search for powers of blessing can only be done if somebody has a certain rela-tionship with the authority who could grant such blessings. Those authorities are usually indicated with the word ‘god’ or ‘deity’.1 It is clear that the gods do not belong to the environment of people. They belong to another world, where people seek refuge for many different reasons.

Often religion has been explained with concepts like transcendence or the supernatural (Nanda 1984:361; Van Baal-Van Beek 1985:5). However, those con-cepts could cause confusion. If the other world of the gods is defined as tran-scendence or as the supernatural, then it must be realized that those concepts can also point to an area that borders on the social environment of people. We shall meet in Chapter 2 with such a world in the ‘wilderness’, inhabited by the gods of the earth. The decisive fact is that always the other world is related to the gods as their domain, different from the domain of people, their cultural world.

Just like religion, also magic can be related to the other world of the gods. The meaning of the two concepts and the relationship they have to each other has been reflected on many times.

Before discussing several views about religion and magic, I should like to stress the importance of approaching the beliefs and practices of the people involved with openness for their own perspective and convictions, the emic viewpoint.

1 I use most of the time only the word gods without adding the word spirits to it because in the Toraja language gods and spirits are summarised in one expression in the plural, dewata.

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Openness for the Worldview in Which Religion and Magic are Embedded

Listening to the stories of the people in Mamasa related to religion and mag-ic, I often cannot avoid the impression that I hear stories that are related to fairytales or fiction. The reason is mainly that I do not know from my own background the spiritual beings who are worshipped as gods and I also don’t understand the means that effectuate certain results. At the same time, how-ever, I must also be conscious about the many premises in my own thinking, which I accept as true without understanding their essentials. It makes me cautious to stamp for me unexplainable proceedings or effects as superstition or primitive way of thinking. This cautiousness should give openness for sto-ries about experiences in the framework of beliefs and practices in the religion and in magical acts of the people I meet. About this point I should like to have a look into some ideas about ethnocentrism, especially to put some bound-ary markers for my investigiation into personal religion among the Toraja’s of Mamasa.

The Point of Reference in the Culture Which is Studied

Many researchers have pointed to forms of ethnocentrism in which the point of reference for the explanation lies in the systems of thought of the investi-gators.2 As examples of studies in which much attention is given to the views of the people themselves can be mentioned the study of Mauss from 1902–33 about magic, and the study of Schefold from 1988 about the pullaijat ritual in Mentawai. In these studies the search for structures in the convictions of the people does not oppress their own interpretation. On the contrary, the belief and the experience of the people determine the structure which is sought. In this process it is not the prefabricated theory which decides about the out-come of the investigation. Skorupski (1967:14–7) warns that the investigator has to choose a point of reference in the culture concerned for all the explana-tions, because otherwise he is only busy with an extension of his own culture. An attitude of openness for the presented and perceived information can lead to an interpretation in which the people recognize themselves.

2 Tambiah 1990:64. He quotes here words of L. Wittgenstein. See for warnings against ethno-centrism also Skorupski 1967:52; Evans-Pritchard 1965:7.

3 In 1902–3 Mauss wrote together with H. Hubert Esquisse d’une Théorie générale de la Magie which was publisched by the Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, in 1950.

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Two Examples of Openness for the People and Their Culture

As examples and in the mean time as a sort of guideline for my own approach of the way of thinking related to the religion of the Toraja’s, I should like to discuss, in short, the way the two scholars, Mauss and Schefold, who I already mentioned above, have addressed the belief and religious practices in the cul-ture of people they have investigated.

Mauss, Collective Representation

No Belief or Rite Outside the TraditionMauss has written about incantations. He describes them and their working from the view and the experience of the people who know and use them. They are convinced that those sayings are not mere magic formulas, but some sort of vehicles for spirits. Therefore the name and the qualities of the spirit who is expected to work through the incantation are described. Because his identity is disclosed, he is urged to act. Without a spiritual force an incantation cannot be effective. To activate the spiritual force the magician can use special gestures and he often blows in the direction of the object that must undergo the work-ing of the incantation. Usually the words of the incantation are not spoken audible but silently ‘in the heart’ (Mauss 1950:45–50).

In his description of magical acts, including incantations, Mauss does not confine himself to a description of the words and procedures to classify them by giving a name to the magical acts, such as ‘similarity’, ‘contiguity’, and ‘con-trast’. He tries to identify the underlying working force, as it is believed by the people who use those acts. Important for those acts is the indivisibility of the personality of a being. Every part contains the vitality, the essence of a person, a plant, an animal, or an object (Mauss 1950:57–8). Therefore always a rela-tionship stays active between a part and the whole. As a result, a magical act can be directed to one or some of the countless links of a sympathetic chain (Mauss 1950:60). This idea of wholeness appears also in the belief that not the recognizable appearance at the outside of an object, plant, person, or animal defines its or his working, but much more the inner characteristics that func-tion as an image. It can receive the value of a symbol. For instance the weight, coolness, or firmness of something or somebody can become the agent for a magician to perform certain acts. Mauss calls this an abstract interpretation (Mauss 1950:62). In all those matters it is important to understand that the tradition defines those relationships and workings. Outside the tradition no belief and no rite is found nor recognized.

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Effectiveness at a DistanceMauss (1950:72) wonders in which way the effectiveness at distance can be ex-plained. Many suggestions have been done already. Some say that it is through a dampness which disperses; others talk about magical images, or about the soul of the magician that undertakes a journey.

According to Mauss (1950:66), the following can be remarked. All the acts that are usually classified by their similarity, contiguity, or contrariety are de-pendent on the nature of the objects and the characteristics that have to be con-veyed. Therefore, the invention of the magician is not free. It can also be said that during all the parts of the magical proceedings and with respect to the per-sons and objects that are involved, personifications can occur. The effectiveness of a magical action is accomplished by forces and spirits (Mauss 1950:72).

Mauss (1950:90) points to the forces that are activated in the rites. He writes that there is always a double residue, double résidu, which is essential in the magical rite. A mythical force must be released together with the energy of the active characteristic of the object, without which the rite would be impossible (Mauss 1950:99). On top of it, spiritual forces are supposed to intervene.

All magical representations can transform into personal representations. In this way the force of a rite is personalized. Likewise the characteristic of plants and animals that play a part in magical practises can become a personal repre-sentation. The object of the magical act like fever, tiredness, death, can become personalized too. As a result, it will be possible to address in the incantation the illness and also the materials that are used, like arrows, drums, urine, nails.

The Spirits and the CollectivityMauss (1950:98–9) writes that magic is never understood as an act of spirits only. According to him the notion of spirit, esprit, must be supplemented with the notion of effective power, pouvoir efficace. According to Mauss, this power is not the activation of mediating forces (Schefold has another opinion, see further on in this Chapter), but the indication of the existence of a more com-mon magical force, which is not derived from the magical spirit, esprit. This assumes the existing of a mysterious environment for this force where the proceedings are not according to our senses. For instance, distance does not count over there and desires are immediately realized. It is the spiritual world of the spirits. At the base of magic exists this, for our European understanding, strange world.

Which are the spirits, esprits, of magic? Mauss mentions in the first place the death spirits, and then also other spirits such as demons and gods. Sometimes the magical spirit is only a personification of a magical procedure (Mauss 1950:77–8). However, always objects of collective representation are meant, products of

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the belief of the community in magical powers. It is a collective experience. That collective illusion is necessary, in fact, to create a spirit (Mauss 1950:79).

Most magical spirits are exclusively fixed in rite and tradition. Their exis-tence is only posterior verified by the belief that has prescribed them (Mauss 1950:81). In this way Mauss concludes that the elements of magic are created and qualified by the collectivity, although this collective procedure takes place in a hidden way (Mauss 1950:82).

No Deception but Believe a PrioriThe belief in magic is always a priori. People go to the magician only when they belief in him or her. The spirits do not allow disbelief. The magician too acts in belief. Even if he makes a stone appear from the stomach of a patient, while he first took the stone from his own mouth. He believes in the reality of his act. Therefore there is no question of cheating (Mauss 1950:88–9). The actor forgets that he is playing a role. The public power of faith creates the belief, also the belief of the magician.

The magician does not act out of himself. He is a servant of the community, which gives him his authority. Because people take him seriously, he is serious (Mauss 1950:90). In this collective soul, âme collective, people accept as true also the things that are hidden. Thus magic is a belief a priori, croyance á priori, collective and unanimous. It belongs to the category of collective thought, pen-sée collective (Mauss 1950:112). It exists in the inner self of individuals as it exists in the community.

Collective ForcesJust like religion, magic is a matter of feelings, a play of value judgments that attach all types of qualities to matters, which enter the system of the society. The judgements are not the work of individual spirits, but expressions of social feelings (Mauss 1950:115).

The thoughts of Mauss are comparable to the views of his father in law, Dur-kheim, who stated that an impersonal force is derived from the ideal dream about the society, from which a feed-back takes place towards the same society (Mauss 1950:137, Durkheim 1960:601–3). Mauss too is of the opinion that the origin of magic lies in a collective representation, which becomes the basis of the individual understanding.

Thus magic is a social phenomenon, produced by collective forces. Mauss gives a psychological explanation of this opinion. The magical judgment is formed prior to the experience. The experience only confirms and will seldom invalidate what happened. The magic belief is determined by the general be-lief in magic (Mauss 1950:118). The judgment about magic is a translation of the

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necessity a person feels to use magic. It is always the community which pays itself. It is the false money of its dream, la fausse monnaie de son rêve.4 The syn-thesis of cause and effect occur in the public opinion. Outside the public opin-ion magic stays absurd. The a priori becomes a posteriori. Because of his or her belief in the magician, the ill person indeed feels better (Mauss 1950:120).

Mauss agrees that emotion plays a part,5 but always the condition of the individual is determined by the community with its expectation and its fear (Mauss 1950:125).

Schefold, Working of Mediating Forces

Schefold wants to conduct intensive research in the system of thought behind the efficacy of symbolic acts (Schefold 1988:23). The complex rituals are part of a comprehensive world view. It is necessary to look for a symbolic system of orientation in order to understand the coherence in the processes (Schefold 1988:271).

In regard to magical acts, which are embedded in religion, especially the concept of the ‘mediator’ arises. This idea is directly connected with the way people in the society experience their world. Everything, men, plants, things have a soul. The soul can leave the body, have contacts, be influenced. In the mean time, however, soul and body keep joined. If something happens with one, the other is immediately affected.

The interaction between soul and body and the possibility to influence the soul belong to the core of the magical procedures, since all the souls are acces-sible for charms and incantations (Schefold 1988:277). The incantations consist of words. However, not only words are used. To bridge the gap between the visible and the invisible reality one often uses ‘instrumental symbols’ (Schefold 1988:37,277). They have a mediating function. Certain exterior characteristics are important for the mediators. These characteristics point to aspects that may correspond to the essence.

If there is a form of concurrence, for instance on the one hand a plant that keeps it leaves while growing, and a village that does not want to lose inhabit-ants on the other hand, then it points also to a concurrence of the essence. The association between the plant and the desire of health and life for the people

4 Mauss 1950:118. Douglas (1976:92) has used this expression of Mauss with approval. She states that it is not false money, because the community has confidence in the magical ritual.

5 Mauss 1950:120. Mauss agrees with M. Lehman who explanes magic from emotions which produce illusions. See for this opinion also Malinowski 1948:71,80.


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in the village forms a direct relation. The association of decisive characteristics shows a willingness of the soul to make an effort in the same way for the ob-jective. Schefold (1988:37) calls such associative connections Mittler.6 Such a symbol has magical potential. A connection exists between the symbol and the objective, but not in a automatic way. The Mittler cannot be forced.

In order to let a symbol work magically, its instrumentality has to be activat-ed. That happens through incantations, gestures, offerings (Schefold 1988:38). In the incantation is pronounced which characteristics are relevant for the associative connection and which meanings are relevant. The thought which lingers continually in the background is the question which souls and spirits have to be influenced. They have to bring about the purposes of the incanta-tion. The mediators do it in their specific way in accordance with their charac-teristics (Schefold 1988:498).

Schefold (1988:512) does not agree with Leach (1976:29) who states that incantations as a sort of magical charms must bridge the crevice between in-strumental symbol and the object. The success of the magical proceedings has also nothing to do with a mechanical working in accordance with the laws of nature (so Malinowski 1948:73). It is all about influencing the soul. If it does not succeed, then the failure must be sought in the inaccurate performing of the rite, or the working of opposite magical influences (Schefold 1988:279).

Primary and Cultural AssociationsThe quality of the mediators is not arbitrary. It is founded on the concurrence of characteristics. In this respect can be distinguished between characteristics that belong inseparable to the object, plant, or animal, the primary associa-tions, and the associations that are related to the daily use or to the use in hab-its or rituals, called the cultural category of associations (Schefold 1988:36,499). Depending on the context, the accents can differ (Schefold 1988:37), but there is no question of random thought connections. The confinement of the assign-ing of certain mediatory characteristics lies in the religious tradition. The as-sociations are valid because they are anchored in the holy tradition (Schefold 1988:501,4; Mauss 1950:89–90).

Afterwards all associations can be traced back to certain outer forms of a specific use. This does not mean, however, that evident associations have to be valid everywhere. Each quality can appeal to the experience of the people in a different way. Identified associations can be verified in retrospect, can not be predicted a priori (Schefold 1988:504).

6 Schefold mentions an expression of V.W. Turner in The Ritual Process 1974:32 with the same intention as Mittler, namely ‘instrumental symbol’.

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OfferingsIn regard to mediators, offerings can be of importance. Through offerings, in addition to incantations and gestures, the concrete characteristics can be acti-vated. Through offerings people appeal to other religious authorities, but me-diators can also be activated by offerings (Schefold 1988:510).

Evaluation: Important Elements for the Study of Religion and Magic in Mamasa

It is obvious that both Mauss and Schefold do not take their starting point in the Western way of thinking. They try to give careful attention to the ideas and the deeds of the community. According to Mauss, magic is the product of col-lective representation occurring in the community. He therefore defines it as human belief and behaviour, different from religion only with respect to the circumstances in which it takes place. Magic is not an organized cult which is attended publicly, but a private ritual, most of the time executed in secret, but carried and maintained by the belief of the community.7

The base of magic lies in the collective experience and the collective be-lief of the community. In this sense the community pays itself. In the belief of the community the magical words and deeds are carried out by forces, spirits, gods, who have their place in a, for an outsider, strange world. Mauss speaks about a mysterious environment where the proceedings are not according to our senses: the spiritual world of the spirits. The belief in another world of gods and spirits, a belief a priori, is distinctive for both religion and magic and determines the content and experience of it.

It is important that also Schefold gives space to the opinions and interpre-tations of the people themselves. He goes in that respect further than only pointing to the symbolic meaning of objects, plants, animals and acts (so for instance Skorupski 1967:18,24). Schefold shows that the symbolic meaning in-dicates a deeper layer, namely the essence, the soul. At that level influences are possible, in which incantations, gestures, and offerings are involved.8

7 Maus 1950:13–6,45 gives an explanation of the differences between religion and magic, which in fact belong together as two poles of the collective representation in which gods and spirits are involved.

8 Leach (1976:136) has called the belief in mediators: men, women, gods, spirits, souls, who can establish a connection with the other world and in that way exert control, ‘non sense’. But his opinion, written down from a Western system of thought, has no relation with the thinking of the people themselves.


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With regard to Indonesia Kruyt and Wilken9 already showed the impor-tance of the belief in souls and spirits. This belief not only concerns living be-ings but also material objects. They are believed to have a soul as well. Schefold has recognized the indigenous conviction of a mediating soul as the prin-ciple for the explanation of magic.10 Souls can be influenced in such a way that a relationship remains to exist in regard to what happens with them, and the bodies in which they belong. They can go outside the body, but stay in the meanwhile connected with it. By way of offerings, gestures, incantations the souls are influenced.

When offerings are used in relation to magic, it shows that, according to the people who use them, magical words and acts have to do with spirits and gods. The pointing to the workings of the soul of plants, animals, objects, should therefore be supplemented with the religious conviction of the people that spirits and gods are present and their involvement is needed. This conviction permeates their whole life. They feel themselves dependent on the gods and therefore prayers, most of the time in the shape of offerings, have to be used. This means that offerings, together with charms and incantations, not only serve to activate the instrumentality of the associative connections, the souls, but are essential in the mind of the people to activate the gods. Without rela-tion to the gods magic would not exist and religion would not be possible, at least in the traditional religion of Mamasa.

We shall come back to this conclusion in the discussion about personal be-lief and the use of stones and incantations in Mamasa in Chapters 3 and 4.

9 Alberth C. Kruyt Het animisme van den Indischen Archipel, s’-Gravenhage 1906. G.A. WIlken Het Animisme bij den volken van den Indischen Archipel, Amsterdam 1884–85.

10 Schefold (1988:36) writes that he was influenced by the studies of V.W. Turner in this regard.


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chapter 2

Headlines of the Religion of the Toraja’s in West Sulawesi

Toraja’s in West Sulawesi

Toraja is the name of several people who live in the mountainous areas of Central, South, and West Sulawesi. Because of the difference in languages, a distinction was made between the Bare’e Toraja’s in Central Sulawesi and the Tae’ Toraja’s in South and West Sulawesi, according to the negation in their languages bare’e or tae’ (A.C. Kruyt, De Bare’e sprekende Toraja’s, iii,1914:1–2). Today the people in Central Sulawesi do not use the name Toraja anymore. They are now called the Kaili people also with a distinction according to the negation, for instance the Kaili Da’a who live in the mountains between Pasang Kayu, Donggala, and Palu.

In this study I concentrate especially on the Toraja’s who live in the area of the Mamasa River. Since 2002 this area of the Mamasa River forms a separate dis-trict, also with the name Mamasa, in which the central place is called Mamasa as well. In 2004 the Mamasa district became part of a new province, West Sulawesi, together with the coastal areas of Polewali and Mamuju. The Toraja’s who live around the Sa’dan River to the east of the Mamasa area are closely re-lated to the Toraja’s around the Mamasa River. Their living area is usually called Tana Toraja, while the area around the Mamasa River is called Mamasa.1

Changes in the Religion of the Toraja’s

Until the middle of the 20th century the majority of the Toraja’s lived in the traditional religion that is called the aluk to yolo, which means ‘the religion of the people who lived in former times’. In fact this expression is not correct because until today a minority of the Toraja’s still lives in this religion. Toraja’s in Tana Toraja use also the expression alukta, meaning ‘our religion’. In this study I will use the word aluk2 in regard to the traditional religion of the Toraja’s.

1 See for the Mamasa area in relation to the area of Tana Toraja: Buijs 2006:10–16.2 The expression aluk means ‘religion’ and can be described as ‘the religious ideas and their

rules which have to be obeyed by the people’ (Buijs 2006:21).

17Religion of the Toraja’s in West Sulawesi

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When the Dutch government started to rule over the Mamasa area in 1907 (Bigalke 2005:51–62), they allowed Christian missionaries to spread the Chris-tian faith (Van der Klis 2006:22–26; Volkman 1985:29–30). In the beginning, many people joined the new religion,3 although not long thereafter many of them returned to the traditional aluk. However, the Christian religion contin-ued to propagate, and in the middle of the twentieth century the majority of the Toraja’s had embraced the new faith. Most of them joined the Christian church, the Gereja Toraja Mamasa, which had formally established itself dur-ing a church meeting in June 1947. In the following years the people in sev-eral villages remained in the belief and practices of the aluk and many others still felt very much attracted by the religion of their parents and ancestors, al-though formally they had joined the Christian church (Figure 3).

Over the years of the 20th century, some Muslim families settled in the central place of the Mamasa area, Mamasa, and also along the main roads. When Mamasa became a district with its own government in 2002, the Muslim community grew quickly. Many Muslim civil servants were appointed in high

3 The first missionaries came from the Indische Kerk followed in 1928 by missionaries from the Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerken in the Netherlands.

Figure 3 In the traditional religion deceased people of high nobility were put upright for some days in the house where they had lived. This tradition, called dipatadongkon, is still practiced nowadays.

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positions. Especially in the governmental centre the influence of the Muslim religion increased rapidly.

At the beginning of the 21th century a small minority of the Toraja’s4 still stays within the aluk. Usually they live in small isolated villages where no other belief is present. Those villages are often called ‘enclaves of the aluk’. Because of the policy of the Indonesian government, which does not recognize the aluk belief, the people of some aluk enclaves have declared themselves formally part of the Hindu religion.5 Under the umbrella of that recognized religion, children from the aluk community can go to a secondary school and may get married, without the chance to be rejected by a civil servant. However, in the mean time the aluk people stay within their own tradition (Figure 4).

Anyhow, it becomes more and more clear that the aluk community is di-minishing and might disappear in the near future. An important factor in this

4 In 2015 about three percent of the Toraja’s belonged to the aluk. The majority of them lives in small isolated communities.

5 For further information see Martin Ramstedt (ed.), Hinduism in Modern Indonesia, Rout-ledge/Curzon, 2004:184–225.

Figure 4 In the small aluk communities especially chickens and pigs are used for offerings to the gods.


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process forms the education, which is now organized for all the children in the whole region. To some degree also activities of the church play a part.6 Nowa-days it becomes more and more difficult to maintain the old structures which are so important for the continuation of the rituals of the aluk.

The whole ritual year used to be structured by the cultivation of rice and its rituals under the authority of the rice priest. But at present rice can be har-vested two or even three times during one year. This happens most of the time not simultaneously. It means that in those areas the ritual year, which was based on the rice season, cannot be maintained any more. Moreover, the per-formance of the public rituals, in which animals must be offered to the gods, has increasingly become a big financial difficulty for the aluk communities. The slaughtering of one or more chickens is no problem, but often pigs are necessary and even expensive buffaloes (Figure 5).

In the enclaves of the aluk the people are still trying to perform the rituals that belong to the old traditions.7 This often happens in a much reduced way, without the performance of all the traditional parts of the rituals. Often the significance of the rituals is not fully understood any more by the new genera-tion, especially regarding the relation to the gods.

In 2003 I attended a mortuary ritual in a small village, Batarirak, not far from Mamasa. The old man who would be buried, lived in the aluk and he had told his children that he wished his burial to be performed according to the old traditions. The children conceded to his wish and executed all the parts of the rituals. However, it was obvious that sometimes the old words were not re-membered precisely.

The purpose of the rituals used to be in the first place to approach the gods with offerings in order to obtain their blessings. Also the rituals of thanksgiv-ing, in which many animals were slaughtered, had the intention to obtain blessings in future. It becomes, however, increasingly difficult to comply to all the requirements and even in the mind of the aluk community the tradi-tional rituals lose much of their power. This is ever more the case with the youth.

Only in those places where people have found a new motivation for the performing of the rituals we see a kind of revival. In the area of the Sa’dan River, the area of Tana Toraja around the town Rante Pao, big funeral rituals are

6 Many times people belonging to the aluk complain about the behaviour of Christians in busi-ness and in politics. They experience their behaviour as an obstacle to join the Christian church. See Chapter 3.

7 The headhunting ritual pangngae and the ritual for women malangngi’ are still held in some villages, where almost everybody belongs to the traditional religion (Buijs 2006:135).

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performed on an ever larger scale. This development has nothing to do with a revival of the traditional religion, but rather with a quest for status through the showing off by the family of a deceased man or woman of their richness (Waterson 1984:17). The majority of the people in Tana Toraja belongs to the Christian church, but the rituals performed for the dead are not part of the rituals of the church. They do not have either the intention to ask for blessings from the gods of the aluk. The people feel proud of their cultural inheritance, which becomes a means to demonstrate their wealth. It has become an impor-tant part of their identity.

In former times the public rituals, in which the whole community was involved, played a prominent part in the religion. For instance the ritual pa’bisuan, which was performed by women as a thanksgiving for received blessings. At the same time it was a ritual of coming of age. In this ritual the women danced on branches of a tree in the early morning after they had run out of the village the previous evening. Many people from the nearby villages gathered to take part in the activities of the ritual after the women came back from the woods, in which they had stayed during the night (Buijs 2006:157–75). This female ritual functioned in former times as a counterpart of the male headhunting ritual, bulu londong (Buijs 2006:177–98). In both rituals many

Figure 5 During funeral rituals buffaloes are slaughtered.


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elements were involved in which blessings from the gods were looked for, but the main purpose of the female as well as the male ritual was the coming of age of respectively women and men.

Essentials of the Aluk Religion in the Mamasa Area

The public rituals for life and those for the dead have already got ample atten-tion in the studies of H. Nooy-Palm and J. Koubi. In the following outline of the religion I shall try to highlight some essentials that are important for the understanding of the personal experience and practice of the religion.8

Officials in Religion and Society

1 Leaders of the Society, Tokeada’The other world of the gods is experienced as a superior world. This appears also in the position of people who trace their origin back to that other world and derive authority and status from it. Many of these people hold leading posi-tions in the society to see to it that the rules, the adat, given by the gods from the other world are maintained. The adat is a comprehensive package of rules and guidelines which came from the heavens to the earth together with the first sons of the gods. They are called the tomanurun, which means ‘they who descended’.

The descendants of the tomanurun, called tokeada’,9 live on earth but they are aware of their origin and of their future. They expect that, eventually, they will return to heaven. They are the people of the highest rank in society10 who feel themselves responsible for the implementation of the rules of the adat. By way of following those rules, the people remain within the boundaries estab-lished by the gods from the other world, while they keep connected with them.

It is noteworthy that the traditional religion of the Toraja’s in the Mamasa area knows no men belonging to the nobility who officiate as priests.11 They have re-sponsibility for the regulations in the society (Figure 6). In the area of Tana Toraja

8 In this outline of the aluk religion I use also information from my previous study of the Mamasa culture, Powers from the Wilderness and from Heaven (2006).

9 Another name for tokeada’ is hadat.10 The highest rank is called tana bulawan, the golden rank. Lower ranks are called tana

bassi, tana karurun, tana koa-koa. See Buijs 2006:26.11 In this Chapter 2 I shall explain that the religious leader in death rituals is a man, the

tomebalun. He belongs usually to the lowest rank. The religious leader in rice rituals can be a man or a woman, the toso’bok.

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at the eastern side of Mamasa we find a later development of the aluk. There the traditional religion developed in such a way that masculine features became more prominent, so that men could become priests, tominaa (Buijs 2006:199).

2 The Priestess ToburakeThe officials who have received a calling to lead the public rituals in which blessings are asked from the gods and thanksgivings are given, are always women. The name that they use in their office is toburake (Buijs 2006:139).

These priestesses have been taught in their youth by their mothers the dif-ferent parts of the rituals, together with the prayers. In a conversation with an adat leader, Nenek Lento Dessiande, who used to officiate in the region Rambu Saratu, he explained to me that the toburake is the only official person who may say prayers in public rituals. She is the only one who is ordained to mediate in those rituals between the gods and the people, while asking for blessings for life on earth.12 The gods, who are approached for those blessings, do not stay in the heavens, but in the other world of the ‘wilderness’.13 Like the tokeada’, also the toburake derives her origin from the heavens where her first ancestor came

12 This statement is true in relation to the public rituals. In Chapter 3 it becomes clear that in a certain sense each head of a family is also a priest in his own household and sometimes also in other circles in the society. In private rituals like the building of a house, prayers are said by the official who slaughters a chicken or a pig, the topetoe piso.

13 See for the concept of the wilderness further on in this Chapter. See Buijs 2006:150 for the tradition about the relation of the toburake with the heavens and also with the other world situated on earth, the wilderness. She got the task to become a priestess of the gods of the earth, residing in the wilderness. They are expected to give blessings for life on earth.

Figure 6A tokeada’ in Mamasa, Nenek Pualilin.


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from (Buijs 2006:152). She leads the rituals that are focused on life on earth, in which she says prayers to obtain blessings (Figure 7).

Sometimes the toburake utters a prayer to the gods in the heavens instead of the gods of the wilderness. Then she officiates in rituals which separate the rituals for the dead and the rituals for life on earth. This happens especially in the rituals mekolong and ditobangngi barang. In mekolong the mourning community which is focussed on death, is guided back to life on earth. In di-tobangngi barang the house where the deceased was kept, is ritually cleansed. After those two rituals blessings may again be expected from the gods for life on earth (Buijs 2006:127–38).

3 Priest and Priestess for the Cultivation of Rice, toso’bokAlmost always the utterance of prayers is done by the priestess toburake, while the regulation of public life belongs to the competency of the adat lead-ers. However, the task of approaching the gods lies not only in the hands of women. In regard to the cultivation of rice, offerings and prayers can be done by women (Figure 8) but also by men. The name for those male and female

Figure 7 A toburake in action with her attributes, a small drum, the kamaru, and a porcelain saucer, the pindan.

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officials is toso’bok or tomassuba’. That the same name can be used for a priest and a priestess gives an indication that the cultivation of rice has a special sig-nificance in regard to the religion. The reason is that both the male gods from the heavens as well as the female gods of the earth are asked for their blessings.

According to the tradition, rice was given by the gods to their sons, the to-manurun, when they descended to earth. These tomanurun needed powers of blessing from the earth to be able to propagate. However, the same can be said of the rice grains, growing in the earth.

The powers of blessing from both the heavens and the earth come to-gether in the propagation of men as well as in the cultivation of rice. The joining of male and female powers of blessing is necessary to obtain fertility. In regard to the cultivation of rice this decisive combination is showed, not only in the office of a male and a female priest, but also in a special ritual, ma’dondi.

When the rice plants start to grow, it is necessary to transplant a part of them. At that time, the time of the thinning out of the rice plants, called tu-morak, men are called by women to join them in the rice field for a fertility play (Buijs 2006:109; see also Chapter 3). From the moment that the rice plants start to grow until the time of the harvest, no marriages are allowed to be concluded in the community. Everything is concentrated upon the marriage of the heav-ens and the earth to bear fruit.

4 The Death Priest, TomebalunIt is noteworthy that offerings and prayers to the gods have no place in mortu-ary rituals. Therefore the priestess toburake does not have a function in those rituals. The rituals for the dead are conducted by a man, the priest tomebalun (Figure 9). This name means ‘he who wraps the dead body’. Blessings from the gods are not sought for, since everything is focused on the deceased, whose spirit must be guided to the place in the other world where he can be received

Figure 8A rice priestess, toso’bok. She uses also the small drum, kamaru.


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based on his descent and the observance of the adat rules during his life. Not the obtaining of powers of blessing is important now, but the right perfor-mance of the rituals. In this way the spirit of a noble person, whose descent can be traced back to the tomanurun, may receive access to the other world of the gods and become also a source of blessings, especially for all those people who brought animals to be slaughtered in his death funeral.

The tomebalun sees to it that the right animals are slaughtered and that all the other adat rules are obeyed. He announces to the gods that somebody has died. This happens by hitting a chicken to death against the stairs of the house of the deceased, perembasan (Buijs 2006:24), whereupon the spirit of the chicken brings the message to the heavens. The tomebalun wraps the body and sees to it that all the adat regulations related to death are maintained, es-pecially the observance of the restrictions, the pemali, that are in place for the mourning family. Finally he reminds people who have postponed the slaugh-tering of a buffalo, pembabasan, that the obligation to fulfil their promise must not be forgotten, so that the gods will not be angry and are going to remind them with punishments.

Figure 9 A tomebalun, here the man with the white band around his head has the task to wrap the body of a deceased person. He is assisted by many men from the family.

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Looking for Blessings from the Gods

The Other World of the GodsThe world of the gods does not coincide with the world where people live and have their culture. In their religion people expect to obtain power and bless-ings, the powers of blessing from that other world of the gods. The other world of the gods is thought above in the heavens but also on the earth in areas that are not occupied by men, the wilderness. Such a wilderness as dwelling place for gods is usually found in the woods, where nobody lives (Buijs 2006:44–8). Those other worlds are believed to be the place of powers, gods or spirits, who influence the welfare of people and have authority over their future.

Prayers and Offerings for the GodsThe gods who give their blessings are called in the Toraja language dewata.14 The dewata are thought to be in the heavens, or they have their place on earth. The dewata of the heavens are especially associated with the gods whose sons came as the tomanurun to the earth in primordial times, but they are also re-lated to the spirits of the ancestors who were able to return to their origin.

The dewata of the earth are the gods that enabled the sons of the gods who descended from the heavens to propagate on earth. The blessings of the dewa-ta of the earth must be obtained to make life on earth possible and prosperous. In the aluk religion the people are looking for blessings from the dewata of the earth for their wellbeing during their life on earth.

The dewata of the heavens provide their blessings as far as the life of people is dominated by returning to their origin in the heavens. Especially the growing of the food that originated from heaven, rice, is dependent on the blessings of the dewata from the heavens (Buijs 2006:87).

In the aluk religion of the Toraja’s a prayer to the dewata may never be ex-pressed without the slaughtering of an animal. In a conversation with a priest-ess of the aluk, the toburake indo’ Galo’ (Figure 10), I asked her to pronounce a prayer because I liked to know what was asked in a prayer and in which way the gods are addressed.

The toburake was absolutely not willing to pronounce a prayer, even al-though I assured her that my aim was only to learn something about the aluk religion and that I would certainly not misuse the information.

14 The word dewata is the plural of the word dewa. In the aluk always the plural is used to speak about or address the powers of the other world in the heavens or in the wilderness on earth.


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Figure 10The toburake indo’ Galo’, also called indo’ Koke, uses her kamaru.

Indo’ Galo’ explained to me that it was not the secrecy of the prayers that pre-vented her to pronounce them to me but the quality and the power of the words. The words have power in themselves. As soon as they are pronounced they go to the gods. However, the gods would not like those words because without the slaughtering of an animal the words would be empty. Indo’ Galo’ was afraid that the gods would think she was too stingy to let the words be ac-companied by something they like, an animal. Almost certainly such empty prayer would be answered with some sort of punishment.

On the other hand, when somebody slaughters an animal, for instance a chicken, with the intention to request some sort of blessing from the gods, and he makes this clear through the offering15 of small parts of the animal, then the gods would certainly welcome the offering as a prayer and understand the intention. They would not need to hear the words.

When the words of a prayer are pronounced, as is often done by the to-burake, then they are sent along with the soul, malaikat, of the animal that was slaughtered, a chicken or a pig. The gods in the heavens will ask the spirit of the animal, ‘Why did they cut your throat?’ or ‘Why they stabbed you to death?’ Then the soul will answer by delivering the message. The expression for this way of reaching the dewata is dimammangngi. For instance, a prayer that the toburake uses to ask the gods to stop heavy rains, goes as follows:

Suleko laoko dadi ambun You must return and become a light rainSalu alla’ta Let the river be between uspura kudasi lalanmu I have finished to sew your pathkudaruma’ tambenanmu I have stitched you together crosswisebaraka do bisa alla ta’ alla May the gods hear my prayer

15 See the paragraph about paisung and pangkiki’ in this Chapter.

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The soul of the animal goes to the place of the dewata and passes the prayer on to them. The message would never reach the dewata in another way. Without an offering, words of people can fly everywhere. They are empty.

Apart from the necessity of an offering as a vehicle to the gods, this practice has also to do with the idea that the animal becomes food for the dewata, espe-cially its blood, which is connected with the life of the animal. I come back to this function of the blood of an animal in Chapter 4 in relation to the continu-ation of the power of certain stones.

Animals Used for OfferingsAnimals that are used to approach the gods to ask for blessings are mostly chickens and pigs. A chicken is most commonly used for offerings to ask bless-ings for daily life (Chapter 3, Pairan). In many ceremonies a pig is slaughtered, for instance when blessings are asked by the rice priest for a good harvest.

Sometimes also a dog is slaughtered, but never alone. The dog as offering goes always together with a chicken and a pig. When the three animals are of-fered together, it is called tallu rara, the offering of three types of blood. This kind of offering has a special meaning. It is used when the gods of the land, the dewata of the wilderness, are asked to give a part of their domain to people who want to make in the woods a house, a village, a grave, or a rice field. The idea is that the gods are happy with this very special present16 and are there-fore willing to relinquish the place to be inhabited by people.17

A water buffalo18 is seldom used in rituals in which blessings for life are re-quested. When it is used, for instance in the thanksgiving ritual rinding tedong, the people explain the use of a water buffalo in this ritual for life as the highest level of offerings which is possible. It makes the prayer extra strong and gives maximal emphasis to the utterance of thanksgiving. However, if it happens, then the animal is not slaughtered in the way it happens in the mortuary ritu-als, with one stroke of a sword in the throat. If the animal is slaughtered in a ritual for life, the legs are bound like the legs of a pig that will be offered, and

16 From the dog no small parts are offered to the gods, such as happens with the chicken and the pig. See the next paragraph. Therefore I call the dog in the offering of tallu rara a present.

17 The offering of tallu rara is also given to the gods when a new grave is going to be made. In this case the people request also permission to occupy a part of the domain of the gods of the land, the dewata lino. The permission is important for a save journey of the soul to its destiny.

18 Sometimes I use the word ‘buffalo’, while the complete name for this animal is ‘water buffalo’.


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it is killed in the same way as a pig is killed, that is with a stab in the heart or in the throat.19

However, most often a water buffalo is slaughtered in rituals for the dead. I shall come back to this topic in the paragraph about the mortuary rituals of rambu solo’ in this Chapter.

The Offerings of Paisung and Pangkiki’The first ritual for a new born child takes place in the kitchen. The baby is ritu-ally brought inside the kitchen, dipatama dapo’. This ceremony is also called ditamui, which means to make the first encounter with the gods. An encounter with the gods can only take place if an offering is brought. For that reason a chicken is slaughtered and small parts of the flesh and intestines are put on banana leaves and given to the gods, especially the gods of the earth. They can give blessings for the child to get a healthy life in prosperity, marendeng anna masakke. The name of this offering is pangkiki’.

Besides pangkiki’ another offering is given, especially to the gods who are in the heavens, including the spirits of deceased ancestors.20 This offering con-sists of larger parts of the flesh of the chicken. They are put on a rattan frame with the name rakki (Figure 11). The expression for this offering is paisung.

Just as the offering of pangkiki’, the paisung is laid down in the fireplace of the kitchen, near the three stones, the lalikan, used to place the cooking pots (Figure 12).21 The paisung is understood by the people as the main offering. This is also indicated by the expression used for it, batana kemalasan, which means ‘the main road for the supplications’. In this expression can be heard the conviction of people that the gods in the heavens determine the final destiny, to reach the heavens after death, or not. The offerings of pangkiki’ are understood as supplementary requests to the gods of the earth for blessings in daily life.

The lalikan, where the fire burns in the kitchen, is seen as the symbolic centre of the house, especially regarding the relation between the family and the gods, the dewata (see for this central place of the kitchen Chapter 3 Pairan).

19 The way a pig is killed depends on the area where it happens. Around Mamasa people stab it in the heart; in the area of Sumarorong and Tandalangngan they stab the throat of the animal.

20 Usually those deities are collectively called dewata dio tangnganna langi’, which means ‘the deities in the middle of the heavens’.

21 See for the lalikan Chapter 3, Lalikan, the Centre of the Kitchen, the Centre of Life.

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The pangkiki’ is not only put near the lalikan, but also at the water container, busso, mostly outside the house, and near the source where drinking water is found, the timbu. Both the busso and the timbu may never be without water. If that happens, it would surely affect the blessings from the gods.

The food which is prepared on the stones in the fireplace, and also the water from the water source, are essential for life. At the same time, the blessings

Figure 12 The two stones next to the fire in the lalikan are used for the offerings.

Figure 11 A rattan frame, rakki, is used for the offering of paisung to the gods in the heavens.


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from the dewata needed for the life of a new-born child and expressed by the offerings of paisung and pangkiki’, underline the importance of the relation-ship with the gods.

It is noteworthy to observe that the two ways of offering to the dewata in which blessings are asked for life on earth, pangkiki’ and paisung, are not found during the mortuary rituals. In view of offerings, the kitchen can be called empty, without smoke, as long as the family waits for the funeral, sometimes for the duration of several years. During the mortuary rituals, the focus of the community is not pointed to life and blessings for life, but to the deceased who is expected to become a source of blessings in future (see the next paragraph).

Rituals for Life, Rambu Tuka’, Rituals for the Dead, Rambu Solo’

The public rituals observed by the Toraja’s, can be differentiated in rituals in which blessings are sought for life and rituals for the dead. The first category is called rambu tuka’ and the second rambu solo’. The meaning of these expres-sions is respectively ‘the smoke goes up’ and ‘the smoke goes down’.

Regarding the interpretation of the two expressions, different opinions are found. Sometimes (Koubi 1982:402) the descending smoke, which pricks in the eyes, is related with the appearing of tears as an expression for the state of mourning in which the people are. Others point to the direction related to the rituals of the dead, which is the same as the direction of the ‘going down’ of the sun and the direction of the ‘going down’ of the big river, namely the west or south-west, which is exactly the direction the dead spirits take in their journey to the realm of the dead.22

Usually the Toraja’s themselves cannot give an explanation about the back-ground and the meaning of those expressions. Generally they say that the name is like that of old, as long as they can remember. However, the signifi-cance of the kitchen as centre and source of life can help us to understand the two expressions.

Rambu Solo’ and Rambu Tuka’ in Relation to the KitchenIn the kitchen offerings are brought for the gods through which blessings are asked for the daily life, welfare, safety, and prosperity (Chapter 3 Pairan). On the fire between the stones of the lalikan the meat of slaughtered animals is

22 In Mamasa the realm of the dead is called Pollondong (Koubi 1982:401), in Tana Toraja the name is Puya.

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prepared to be eaten, after the offerings are given to the dewata by way of pang-kiki’ for the dewata of the earth and paisung for the dewata of the heavens (see the previous paragraph).

During all the offerings to ask blessings for life, in which the meat is prepared on the lalikan, the smoke from the fire that burns (Figure 14) between the three stones in the fireplace goes up, rambu tuka’. This going up of the smoke of the offerings never happens during the rituals of rambu solo’. The rituals for the dead are held during the time that the body of a deceased man or woman is kept in the house, until the day of the burial. Sometimes this period takes only a few days, but it can also last for several years.

During the time of rambu solo’ the kitchen has no function as centre and source of life (Chapter 3). This purpose starts again after the rituals related to the funeral have been concluded with the ritual mekolong (Buijs 2006:127) and the ritual ditobangngi barang23 in which the house where the dead body was

23 I attended the ritual ditobangngi barang in 2004 in the village Batarirak. In this ritual, tak-ing place in the night in the house that must be cleaned, the priestess toburake officiates. At the peak of the ritual a flat rice container, barang, containing all the ‘dirt’ of the death,

Figure 13 The toburake uses her attributes, pindan and kamaru, to clean the house in the ritual ditobangngi barang.


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Figure 14In the kitchen the food is prepared. This is also the place for the offerings at the three stones in the fireplace.

kept, is ritually cleansed. These rituals conclude the rituals for the dead and all the attention can be given again to the rituals for life on earth in which the kitchen has a central place.

After the mortuary rituals have been finished, the smoke is ascending again from between the three stones in the fireplace, where the offerings for life are made, rambu tuka’, that is ‘the smoke goes up’. Because smoke always goes up, the expression rambu solo’, which means ‘the smoke goes down’, indicates that there is no smoke, thus no offerings for the gods are brought.

The Spirit of the Deceased, a Potential Source of BlessingDuring the mortuary rituals some, and often many animals are slaughtered, but never for the gods. They are given to the spirit of the deceased. The pur-pose of the slaughtered animals becomes evident in a ritual that is held seven days after a burial, passerekan (Buijs 2006:76), in which all the animals, to-gether with all the other gifts, which were brought by the participants for the deceased in regard to the funeral, are added and dedicated to the spirit of the deceased, who waited for this moment under the high roof, longa, at the front of the Toraja house.

At the end of the ritual passerekan the following statement is made:

Indemi bawaanna to le’ba membali puang, La penduan ke sulle, pentallun kebala’ ta na ala bongi anna malillin anna kesondamo, kebala’mo

The translation of the statement is as follows:

This is what is given to the one who departs to become a puang (lord)We hope that it comes back twice or thrice. It is our desire that before the evening or the night, the restitution takes place

is thrown, ditobangngi, out of the door. In this and many other ways the house is cleansed in the ceremony that lasts almost the whole night.

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After hearing this pronouncement, the spirit of the deceased is ready to depart to the realm of the dead and maybe24 also, sooner or later, to the other world of the gods in the heavens. As soon as the latter happens, he can become a source of blessings together with the other gods. This expectation forms the motiva-tion for the family to provide the deceased with as many animals as possible (Figure 15). Their desire is pronounced in the ritual passerekan. The hope is that the blessings from the spirit of the deceased will be abundant, especially for the growing and fecundity of the rice.

To make the spirit of the deceased happy and urge him to become a source of blessings in future, no offerings to the gods are necessary and thus no pang-kiki’ and paisung are requested. The killing of the buffaloes and pigs is enough to free the souls, malaikat, of these animals, to join the spirit of the deceased. The desire is that the expenses, which are often considerable, for animals, food, clothes, and everything else that was necessary to conduct the mortuary rituals, will come back profusely.

24 If all the conditions are fulfilled the spirits of the dead can receive a place in the heavens and become gods, membali dewata, who may give blessings.

Figure 15 Many people who attend a mortuary ritual bring a pig as a gift for the deceased. All those gifts are counted and mentioned in the passerekan ritual.


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In the long run the death funerals are also related to life on earth, but they have no relation with, what people call (Chapter 3), the centre of life for people living on earth, the kitchen. There goes a saying that it is not necessary during the mortuary rituals to lay down the banana leave in order to prepare the pang-kiki’ offering and ask for blessings for life. All religious attention is focused on the spirit of the deceased, who has the potency to become a source of blessings in future, especially if he will membali dewata, which means ‘to become a deity’.

Only a few spirits of the dead will reach the heavens and become a deity. This may happen if the genealogical tree can be traced back to the sons of the gods, the tomanurun, who in early history descended to the earth. It is also mandatory that the requirements of the adat rules were fulfilled by the de-ceased during his or her life and by the family in the performance of the death rituals.

Powers of Blessing from the Heavens and from the Earth

In all the rituals for life on earth we come upon a double direction. The of-ferings are given to the gods of the earth, pangkiki’, as well as to the gods of the heavens, paisung. The background of the two types of offerings lies in the conviction of the Toraja’s that powers of blessing from the gods are to be found ‘above’, in the heavens, as well as ‘beneath’ on the earth. In primordial times these two divine powers met and generated life on earth (Buijs 2006:56–7).

In the whole of the Indonesian archipelago we find (Schefold 1993:27; Stöhr 1976:57–68) the thought that the heavens and the earth were one in the be-ginning. In Ceram we encounter the tale that the heavens and the earth were connected with each other at first, in mythical primordial times. The heavens impregnated the earth, and the children that originated from it, pushed the heavens upwards. The heavens ended up with their hands in the west and their feet in the east.

In Toraja the myth is known that the highest god, Puang Matua,25 has cre-ated the first men and the first rituals, together with the first ancestors of the most important plants and animals. Everything was created in the upper world of the heavens and descended to the earth. That happened also with the sons of the gods who came down to the earth as the tomanurun, together with the

25 Koubi 1985:24 writes that Puang Matua is a son of the god of the heavens, one of the sons who originated from the separation of the heavens and the earth. He married a woman who appeared from a rock. Because they did not get children, Puang Matua created the first men on earth.

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rice and all the important adat rules.26 The nobility27 believe that they de-scended from the tomanurun and will return eventually to the heavens.

Schefold (1993:27) points to the paradoxical situation that the sons of the gods, who wish to proliferate on earth, are dependent on the brides who al-ready live on earth. This dependence places them in a subordinate position, since in Indonesia the bride takers are always subordinate to the bride givers (De Josselin de Jong 1935:7; Schefold 1988:76). This paradox is solved in such a way that the nobility keep their high status because of their descent, while the original inhabitants of the land have to provide the rituals in order to obtain blessings from the gods of the earth. These gods of the earth are necessary for fertility and prosperity, also regarding the nobility. Without blessings from the gods of the earth the nobility is not able to live on earth and eventually return to the other world of the gods in the heavens.

In the myths of the Sa’dan Toraja’s who live to the east of the Mamasa area, we find a combination of the arriving of the godly immigrants, coming down from the heavens on the one hand, and immigrants arriving with boats over sea and over the big Sa’dan river on the other hand (Kruyt 1923–24:170; Nooy-Palm 1979:125). The second myth dominates the stories in the Mamasa area. Here the story is narrated that a man of high nobility, Pongka Padang, arrives with his boat and strands on a high mountain. When he sees smoke rising in a distant place, he goes over there and finds a woman, Torijene. All the people of the Mamasa area form the offspring of Pongka Padang and Torijene.28

The genealogical tree of the highest nobility is recited during the mortuary ritual on the day that someone of them is buried. It goes back to the first an-cestor who came from the heavens, a tomanurun (Nooy-Palm 1979:18,23,110–1; Koubi 1982:2). Although the people of the highest nobility trace back their de-scent to the heavens, they can only return to their origin if the most elaborate rituals are held. This means the great ma’bua ritual during their life and after they passed away the most complex mortuary ritual, dirapa’i.

26 Koubi 1985:25. The tomanurun descended from the heavens on the earth together with 7777 adat rules. Each and every ancestor brought his own package of adat rules, so that the adat differs in the different regions.

27 Schefold 1993:6 uses the expression ‘lords of the land’. According to Bellwood 1985:147, the high ranking people belong to the descendants of the first immigrants who started to cultivate the land. He calls it the ‘founders principle’.

28 Makatonan 1985; Buijs 2006:17–21. Nooy-Palm 1979:125 mentions the difference in Sa’dan-Toraja between the tomanurun who came straight from the heavens and the ancestors who came over the sea.


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During the mortuary ritual for the highest nobility a special ritual takes place, which is very important to understand that the nobility need powers of blessing from the gods of the earth during their life in order to be able to reach their destiny, the place of the origin of their family, the heavens. The name of this ritual is simbuang. Because of the importance of this ritual to understand the significance of the powers of blessing from the wilderness for life on earth, I shall explain some striking details of it (see for a discussion of this ritual Buijs 2006:97–108).

It appears in the simbuang ritual that the nobility are dependent on bless-ings from the wilderness during their life on earth. However, this dependency is not only applicable to the nobility, but to everybody. The blessings from the gods of the other world of the wilderness are necessary for welfare and pros-perity during life on earth. The belief that people are dependent on the gods for blessings, influences all aspects of their daily life. We shall see the implica-tion of this matter in Chapter 3 about pairan, concerning the personal experi-ence and practice of the religion.

The Simbuang RitualIn a account of his visit to the Toraja’s, Kruyt (1923–24:148–9) gives the follow-ing information:

During the mortuary ritual for a noble person stones are dragged to the place of offering, the pantunuan, where they are planted in the earth. Most of these big rough stones with the name simbuang, reach about one metre above the ground. Next to each stone a pole is planted, used to tie a water buffalo, which is going to be slaughtered. At one stone no pole is planted. Here the most important buffalo, which represents the deceased noble, is tied.29 The name given to this animal is tandi rapasan. Before the erection of the stone a small piece of gold and an old yellow bead, manik riri’, is put in the hole, while saying, ‘May the children of the deceased enjoy good health and prosperity’. The stones mean a commemoration of the deceased. They can be used again at another opportunity, without the necessity to bring an offering at the moment of replacing them. Never an offering is brought for the stone itself.

29 This most important buffalo is a doti with black and white spots on its skin. This buf-falo is strongly connected to the nobility. The family of the deceased noble person will not eat from its meat after it is slaughtered because they assume that the spirit of the deceased will use this animal to ride to his destiny (Kreemer 1956:239; Volkman 1985:84; Koubi 1982:63,118). See about the doti also Chapter 3.

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So far the explanation from Kruyt. When Kremer (1956:239) mentions the information given by Kruyt, he comments:

These stones are witnesses of the prehistoric megalith culture. Such stones very much draw our attention, not only in the Archipelago (Sum-ba, Flores, Rote, Nias, Sumatra, Java), but also in Asam and West Birma, where they are also used in relation to the death cult.

Nooy-Palm (1979:265–7) too mentions the erection of stones during mortuary rituals for the nobility. She suggests that it probably does not concern a phal-lic symbol, since the stones are not only erected for men, but also for women.

The stones are dragged by the nearest family members of the deceased to the place, pantunuan, where, during the last part of a mortuary ritual the water buffaloes will be slaughtered. The search for and the dragging of the stones is called mebatu. Before a stone may be removed from the place where it is found, a pig has to be slaughtered first as a sacrifice to the gods of the earth. Appar-ently the reason for the offering is that the stone will be taken away from the domain of the gods of the earth, from the wilderness. After the pig is slaugh-tered the stone is dragged through the woods and also through rice fields to the place where the mortuary ritual will be performed. Just before the stone is placed in a hole another sacrifice of a pig is brought to the gods of the earth.

Koubi (1982:167) gives an extensive description of the simbuang ritual and reproduces also the complete invocation, called the mebatu invocation, which is spoken by a priest after the stones are erected. He stands at that moment on a pile of the branches and poles, which have been used to drag the stones through the fields to the pantunuan, sometimes over a considerable distance.

The Mebatu InvocationSome important verses from the mebatu invocation are reproduced here.30

1. Eh, gods! Eh, gods!2. Gods who reign over the west, gods who reside where the sun goes

down3. You, the protectors of the big field, the guards of the big plain…

30 Koubi (1982:167) has translated the invocation of the priest in the French language. My translation in English goes from the French language via the Dutch language. It is there-fore possible that some inaccuracies have slipped in.


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7. Again we have arrived at the step of the stairs where the rules are performed for him on the big plain, where they are prescribed for him

…9. Because on the big plain the bones of the earth are erected. The stones

of the world have been dragged to this place10. That is the reason that I stand here with an iron spade in my hand, a

beautiful spade11. It is with the purpose to cleave the surface of the earth; the skin of a

part of the world12. Because these are the instructions that the ancestors have planted in

the olden days like bamboos; the prescriptions that the first people got when they arrived

13. But I cannot recite them all from the beginning, except the most es-sential ones, the way of the ritual prescriptions, the sacred rules for who has arrived at the end of his road

14. Which has taken place in the olden times, there in the south, in the territory of Rano, when the throats of the parents of Bongga di Rano were cut. It happened then, at the beginning of the big world, when the breath of life from the parents of Bongga Muane was taken away with force

15. Now we have arrived at the step of the stairs where the sacred rite will take place for them

16. It is called the dragging of the stones of the world, the hauling of the bones of the earth

17. He is the one who brings the fertility from the old ages, there in the south at the extremity of the earth; the people propagate there be-neath where everything had its origin in the vast expanses of the world from bygone times

18. Bongga di Rano has kept it accurately; Bongga Muane has guarded it during the former days

19. He is busy with their protection; their survival20. Listen then to this example and follow this ritual, which is known for

everyone, which we plant on the big plain21. Because these rituals have brought fertility in earlier days; they en-

abled the people on the earth to proliferate22. In the same way we now celebrate this ritual on the big plain…25. Because on this day we arrived on the step of the stairs which is

called: the dragging of the bones of the earth; the stones of the world are dragged

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…31. So the rite which we celebrate at this moment, will arrive such as a

boat and will be welcomed as a golden vessel32. Gods! Gods of the west, of the sinking sun33. If the edges of my lips are not in the right place; if the flow of words

is not canalized34. to explain exactly the rules which are linked to the deceased who has

arrived to the goal of his destiny; now complying with care the rites which are given for the end of the stair

…43. So we are going to dig a hole in the surface of the earth; with a beauti-

ful spade we are going to turn over a part of the earth44. The bones of the earth are going to be erected; the stones of the world

are going to be put upright.

Important Elements in the Mebatu InvocationThe megaliths are called the ‘bones of the earth’ (verse 11,43) and the placing of a small piece of gold, which later became a piece of iron, and a yellow bead show that the stones are related with the earth, where the sons of the gods, the tomanurun, arrived. Bongga di Rano, called also with the name Bongga Muane,

Figure 16 The most important buffalo is slaughtered at the simbuang batu. In the Mamasa area this is usually the only stone in the simbuang ritual.


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is a mythical name for the first son of the gods, which means the first ancestor of the nobility (verse 18,31).

Often the stones are related in these verses to the rituals, which the gods have laid down and which guide the nobility on the steps of the stairs through-out their life. The stairs are a symbolic expression for the road the nobility have to follow on the earth, in order to reach eventually the heavens (verse 23).

The simbuang ritual is performed only for the highest nobility, who are ex-pected to make the transition to the other world of the gods in the heavens (Koubi 1982:172). The ancestors of the nobility arrived with the rules given by the gods (verse 12). These adat rules of the gods are planted, such as the differ-ent types of trees have been planted (verse 6,12,14). Because of the powers of blessing which originate from the gods of the earth, the nobility can be prolific and multiply (verse 21).

The stones are called ‘bones of the earth’. They give structure to the earth. In this way the stones (Figure 16) symbolize the sons of the gods and their offspring. They give firmness to the earth, going their way on the earth with as ultimate destiny, the heavens. Like the stones are dragged from the wilderness through the rice fields to the plain where they are erected, so the nobility go their way on earth until they reach the last step of the stairs toward the heav-ens. Underway, the rites, which mean the rules of the gods, have a decisive role. They are like guiding bamboos planted in the earth (verse 12,28). They give fertility and bring about life (verse 15–7).

The rituals mediate the powers of blessing from the gods of the earth and at the same time the powers of blessing from the heavens. These two types of powers of blessing, come together in the nobility, symbolized by the stones that are erected.

Necessity of the Powers of Blessing

For the study of the personal religion of the Toraja’s in the Mamasa area, it is very important to realize that the powers of blessing from the gods of the earth, besides the powers of blessing from the heavens, are not only needed by the nobility, but for all the people who have made their home in the domain of the gods of the earth, in the wilderness. An example is found also in the Minahasa.

Nas (1984:137–8) relates an old ritual that was used in former times when a new dwelling place was planned in the woods.

A skull, birds and stones play a role in the ritual that precedes the erect-ing of buildings. Stones are brought to an open space in the forest and put

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into the ground. Skulls, gathered in a head hunting raid, are buried next to the stones. Flutes that can produce the sound of birds are put near a cooking vessel. In this way the blessings from the gods of the forest are asked. Symbolically the world is centred on the stones which become a source of fertility and power. A connection is made through the stones that are erected in the earth, between the upper world, the heavens, and the earth. The powers of blessing from the gods in the heavens and those from the gods of the earth must combine in this new dwelling place of the people.

The people will always stay dependent on the powers from outside their cul-tural world. Those powers dominate all life on earth. For health and prosperity people need the powers of blessing from ‘above’, from the heavens, and from ‘beneath’, the other world outside the world where people live, the wilderness.

Religious Responsibility

In the next Chapter, I like to investigate to what extent the feeling of depen-dency from the gods of the other world for health, wellbeing, prosperity, pro-tection, has caused a sense of religious conscientiousness. The focus will be especially on people who feel a responsibility for their family and also people who have a task in the society, such as leaders in villages and regions. I include also people who have a religious task, for example the rice priest who has a religious responsibility for the cultivation of rice, and the death priest who is in charge of all the parts of the mortuary rituals.

I shall try to examine if all those people translate their feeling of responsi-bility into a quest of powers of blessing, to be able to fulfil their tasks. Do they realize that life goes wrong without blessings from the gods? Is the thought held that all forms of private life, and the life of the community, break down without the powers of blessing from the gods, so that disaster, misfortune, bad harvest, inundation, must be feared? The key word for this religious awareness and the related search for blessings from the gods is pairan.


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chapter 3

Pairan, Individual Religious Responsibility

Personal Relation to the Gods, Pairan

The most conspicuous part of a religion that usually receives attention from researchers are public rituals. Those rituals give much insight in the religious ordering of a community and the ideas and beliefs of the people about life and death. Mostly less attention is given to personal religious activities and beliefs of the people. The personal relation to the gods and expectations linked with that relation receive less thought in studies about the traditional religion of the Toraja’s.

The public rituals give information regarding the belief of the community in which individuals participate. In that way those rituals give also insight in the belief and the ideas of the people who are involved in it. However, the question arises to what extent and in which way the people are also privately looking for a relationship with the gods to receive blessings for themselves and for other people around them. Do they pray or bring offerings in order to receive or ar-range something? In which way do people know of an individual experience of their belief and how do they give expression to it?

When we ask information about a personal religion among the people in the Mamasa area, often a special expression in the Toraja language is mentioned, namely pairan. Nobody, however, is able to translate that word in the Indo-nesian language. Mostly the informants try to explain it in a few sentences. The expression is not only known by elderly people who still live in the tradi-tional religion, the aluk, but also by people who remember the aluk from their youth. Even many young people, who were born in a Christian family, have heard about it. Without exception everybody who I have asked about pairan says something like, ‘This goes deep! This is related to so many things’. They try to give a description, but often their explanation ends in the statement that pairan cannot be elucidated in a few words or sentences.

From conversations and interviews little by little a whole complex of reli-gious relationships, responsibilities and obligations emerges. Pairan concerns in the first place the personal life and the responsibility for each other in a family and also in the society. People experience a sort of calling and task that comes from the gods, which concerns all the relationships in which they live. In a well known saying people express their belief that the gods have given in pairan guidelines and demands that must be obeyed in order to find ultimately

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the way upwards to them, umpepairanan tongan-tongan kaleta langngan dewata. That is why pairan is called the highway for life, randan batana.

In this Chapter I will give an outline of this religious personal responsibil-ity of pairan. I start with the place and function of the kitchen in a traditional Toraja house. It appears that the kitchen has a central place in the pairan.

Then I discuss the religious introduction of a new-born child in the centre of the personal religion, the kitchen. This happens by means of some rituals that have the purpose to lay the foundation for the pairan of the child, which includes his or her relationship with the gods and with people.

Further I show that the pairan permeates the whole society as a religious responsibility, which people experience personally, especially when they have been put in a leading position. They are convinced that the fulfilment of their tasks is dependent on powers of blessing from the gods, which they request through offerings in the framework of pairan.

Finally I discuss in this Chapter how the pairan deteriorated drastically in the modern society and how people, usually elderly persons who are still con-vinced of the essential meaning of pairan, feel very concerned about develop-ments taking place.

The information about pairan in this study comes mostly from elderly peo-ple who still perform pairan in their daily life, or remember it from their youth. The most detailed information I got from Bapak Bongga Barana’ in the village Batarirak and from Bapak Allolinggi in the village Rante Buda. Both of them showed me the place in their kitchen where offerings of pairan are laid down next to the three stones of the lalikan, at two extra stones which were put there purposely for pairan (Figures 2, 26, 45).

The Centre of Life is Found in the Kitchen

In conversations with elderly people in the Mamasa area several times the following remarkable words were uttered, ‘The centre and source of our life is found in the kitchen’. For somebody, like me, who grew up in the western world, in The Netherlands, these words sound something like a riddle. I could not repeat those words for myself and maybe only a few people in the western world would agree with them. At least the words make us curious to under-stand from which perspective they were spoken.

In a traditional Toraja houses, as some are still found in the Mamasa area, the kitchen is situated at the rear of a house.1 Like the rest of the house, the kitchen is build on posts, about one metre above the ground.

1 The traditional house of the Toraja’s has four parts, a small entrance with a small door at the east side of the house, then the room where the guests are received, the sleeping room and

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The cooking place in the kitchen is covered with sand mixed with clay, en-closed by balks. In the fireplace are put three stones.2 The name of those stones is lalikan. Between the stones fire is made to heat the pans and pots in which food is prepared.

The food that is prepared will almost always be eaten in the kitchen by the family who lives in the house (Figure 17). Only when a meal is served for guests, the men receive the food in the front part of the house. Usually the women will serve the men and are going to eat themselves in the kitchen together with the children after they have brought back the leftovers from the men.

It makes sense that the fireplace in the kitchen, where the fire is burn-ing and the food is prepared, has a special place in the life of the Toraja’s. Sometimes it is called ‘the mother of the family’, induknya keluarga, and also

the kitchen. The house is built on posts and has an arched roof, high at the front and a little bit lower at the rear. The projecting front part of the roof is supported by one or two high and big poles. See the next paragraph.

2 Sometimes three extra stones are put in the fireplace as an extension of the cooking facility. However, sometimes only two extra stones are laid next to the three stones of the lalikan. They are used for offerings. See in this Chapter the paragraph Lalikan, the Centre of the Kitchen, the Centre of Life.

Figure 17 The kitchen is the centre of the family.

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‘the soul of the family’, jiwa keluarga. Those expressions are understandable, because food, and especially rice, can be called the source of life. Without food life comes to an end.

The same is true for water. Therefore not only the cooking place in the kitchen with its lalikan has a special meaning in the life of people, but also the place where water is drawn, the timbu, and the vessel, busso, in which it is kept inside or just outside the kitchen. We already saw in the discussion about pang-kiki’ and paisung in Chapter 2 that offerings for the gods are laid near these three objects, the lalikan, the busso, and the timbu.

When we hear elderly people speaking about the kitchen as centre and source of life, it makes sense to understand that expression from the impor-tance of food and water for life and health. However, there is more. It becomes apparent in the explanations of many people that it is not so much the food and the water that defines the importance of the kitchen. The most important reason has to do with the religion, the aluk, which dominates the whole of the private life and the society. The kitchen has a vital religious significance. But not only the kitchen. The whole house, especially the traditional adat house of the Toraja’s has a religious dimension. This religious importance becomes clear right from the beginning when a place is chosen to build the house, and is continued in the kitchen when the house is inhabited.

The Religious Significance of the House, Pairanna Banua

The building of an adat house is a religious affair. It takes place according to strict rules, especially if it concerns the building of a house for the high-est nobility. From the very beginning until the concluding part, the deities are involved. Their permission is asked and their blessings are needed. The most conspicuous part of those religious activities is the offerings of animals, while prayers are uttered.

Eulogies are said at the concluding stage of the building activities. The rela-tion with the gods and the accompanying acts make that the process of the building of an adat house belongs also to the pairan. The expression which the people use is pairanna banua.

The building activities begin with the identifying of a location. In former times, when the people just started to occupy parts of the forest, the wilder-ness, the feeling was very strong that they desired to take a part of the property of somebody else, in this case the owners of the wilderness, the deities of the earth, the Tuan tanah. That is why their consent for the taking of a part of their land is of vital interest for people, who intend to make a dwelling place in their


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domain. At the same time it is important to realize that those people belong to the highest nobility, the bangsawan, who trace their offspring back to the sons of the gods, tomanurun, who came from the heavens to the earth (Chapter 2, Officials in religion and society). They could only propagate in dependence on the gods of the earth. In the adat house the dependence on the powers of blessing from the deities of the heavens and the deities of the earth comes together in a special way. The adat house (Figure 18) can be seen as a symbolic and visible manifestation of the religious position of the nobility in their de-pendence on the powers of blessing from the heavens and from the earth. This dependence appears in all the stages of the building of the house.

Some Important Stages in the Building of an Adat House

To gain the acceptance and the consent from the deities of the earth to make a dwelling place in their territory, a special offering is made. Usually the offer-ings for the deities of the earth and the deities of the heavens consist of one or more pigs or chickens. However, in the particular case of the wish to occupy a new location, three different animals are slaughtered and offered to the gods, a

Figure 18 Traditional adat house.

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chicken, a pig and a dog. Because Toraja’s themselves like very much the meat of a dog, this animal is added to the usual animals that are offered, in order to make the gods of the earth happy and to make them willing to agree with the building of a house. This explanation was given to me by an older man in the village Rante Buda, ambe’ Allolinggi. He lives in one of the oldest adat houses in the Mamasa area (Figure 11, 22), which belongs to his family for many generations.

The offering of three different animals is called tallu rara, which means three kinds of blood. The offering of tallu rara occurs only when a part of un-cultivated ground is planned to be used by people. This could be for the build-ing of a house, or for the preparing of a rice field, and even when people plan to make a new grave. Through the offering of tallu rara the gods of the earth are requested to relinquish a part of their domain.

After tallu rara the building of the house can start on that place with an ongoing awareness that blessings from the gods are needed. During the whole process, in all its phases, offerings are made, prayers are said, and special eulo-gies are uttered. The offerings are not only directed to the gods of the earth, as was the case in the offering of tallu rara, but also to the gods of the heavens. This appears in the way the offerings are presented. Every time an animal is slaughtered, parts of the meat and intestines are given on rattan racks to the gods of the heavens, paisung, and smaller parts on banana leaves to the gods of the earth, pangkiki’.

The building activities are not directed by a common contractor or car-penter, but a man of high nobility. He is chosen because he not only knows exactly the intricate structure of the house, but has also intimate knowledge of the desires of the gods so that he arranges the offerings at all stages of the building activities. The name used for this official is tomanarang, which means ‘the skilled one’. He directs the carpenters and other workers and, when an animal must be slaughtered, he calls a man who has received this duty from his father in the line of his ancestors. This official is called the topetoe piso, which means ‘the one who holds the knife’. While slaughtering a pig of a chicken, the topetoe piso sends a prayer to the gods. The soul of the animal brings the prayer, in which blessings are asked, to its destiny. This way of praying through the intermediary of the soul of a slaughtered animal is called dimammangngi. When the soul reaches the gods, they will ask why the life of the animal was taken. Then the soul transfers the request for blessings contained in the prayer.

After the choosing of a location to build the adat house and the performing of the special offering of tallu rara, the building activities can start. The first thing to do, is the selecting of the right trees, cutting them down, and bringing the wood from the forest to the building place. These actions may not be done


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without offerings. The woods belong to the gods of the earth. Their consent and their blessings are essential for the success of the building activities and for the wellbeing of the people who are going to dwell there.

Before a tree is cut down, a chicken is offered, and a prayer sent by way of dimammangngi. If the signs, showed by the intestines of the slaughtered ani-mal, are favourable, the tree can be felled. When the trees are drawn from the forest, another chicken is offered to the gods. All those actions are directed by the man who controls all the stages of the building activities together with the offerings that are necessary every time, the tomanarang.

At the building site the first important work that has to be done is the put-ting in place of all the stones which become foundations for the posts that form the core of the construction of the house. Before the stones are put in place, a pig has to be slaughtered for the gods. This happens also when the horizontal posts, the pelelen, are put in the holes that are made in the posts, the lentong, which rest on the stones (Figure 19). This part of the construction of the house takes four days. The first day the lowest horizontal beams are pushed in the holes in the lentong. A pig is slaughtered. The second day the second row is fixed. Again a pig is slaughtered. This procedure is repeated until the four rows of pelelen are put in place at the four sides of the construction, during four days.

Figure 19 The lentong posts rest on stones. The pelelen beams connect horizontally the lentong posts.

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An adat house of the highest category (Figure 20), banua layuk, inhabited by the highest nobility, has four parts, apart from the front porch, the luba’ba, which is situated under the uprising roof, longa.

The first room inside the house is the entrance where people enter the house after climbing a stair. This room is called the tado’. The second room is used to receive guests and to hold meetings, the ba’ba. Then, further to the rear, the family sleeps in the tambing. The last part of the house, but at the same time the most important part for daily life and with regard to the religion, is the kitchen, the lombon. At every stage of the construction of the house the topetoe

Figure 20 Banua layuk, the adat house of the highest category, inhabited by the highest nobility.


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piso slaughters a pig or a chicken, directed by the overall leader of the building process, the tomanarang. This continuous focus on the consent and expected blessings from the deities, pairanna banua, defines the religious meaning and purpose of the house.

The pairanna banua finds its literal, and at the same time its symbolical summit in the concluding ritual of mambubung, which coincides with the last stage of the building process of an adat house. It regards the highest part of the roof, the roof-ridge, bubungan. Just as the start of the process of building a house is very special with its tallu rara, even so the concluding part, in which the last part of the bubungan is put in place at the extreme end of the highest part of the roof at the front side. This part of the roof is elevated, just as the rear side of the roof. However, the elevation at the front side is much higher than at the rear side. This part of the roof in front, the longa, rises high upwards and rests on the huge front pole of the house, the penulak,3 together with another, smaller, pole. The act of placing the last part of the bubungan is done by a man, who has inherited this task from his father in an ancestral line. He is called the tomambubung. The requirement that he must be of pure nobility, rara matas-sak, applies even more for him than for the tomanarang. People say that he must have ‘blue blood’ from his father’s side, as well as from his mother’s side, which means that the father and the mother and all their ancestors belong to the highest nobility, the bangsawan.

When the tomambubung has put the last part of the bubungan in place on top of the longa, he walks and often runs4 over the upmost ridge of the roof three times from the high front side to the rear and back (Figure 21, 22), while calling loud a eulogy, singgi banua, on the house and its different parts.5 With this spectacular performance the building of the house is concluded, while on the ground the topetoe piso slaughters a pig, the last animal in relation to the construction of the house.

Eulogy of the House

Bapak Depparinding Bongga Tasik Pamallunan still remembered the exact words of the eulogy exclaimed by him when he acted as the tomambubung

3 The penulak is erected on a big stone. When this stone is put in place a pig is offered to the gods.4 In the case that the tomambubung loses his balance and falls from the roof, the whole build-

ing will be broken down and another house at another place will be built.5 His performance must have been very impressive, also because he was clad in the traditional

war outfit, a sassang, babu’, tora-tora, wokon, that is a skirt of beads, a harness covered with shells, a necklace of tusks from wild boars, and a helmet made from fine rattan.

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until the last traditional adat house was built in 1970 according to the require-ments stipulated by the adat. It was October 2015 when I spoke with him.

Then, after 45 years, he recited the eulogy without any rehearsal. The words belong to a high level of the Toraja language and are, even for Toraja’s them-selves not easy to understand and to translate in the Indonesian language. Because the content of the eulogy is very interesting and forms an important part of the pairanna banua, I reproduce them here, together with a translation, which, in Indonesian, was accredited by Bapak Depparinding Bongga.

O le inde luba’ba massiring,parantean boro sugi’,litak mariri,litakna tinggi soyo’-soyo’kanna,tinggi soyo’-soyo’kanna,penulak to’do’ ri langi’

O le, this front of the house is very beautiful, the area is gloriousThe earth is yellowThe earth is rich in usefulnessIts usefulness is highThe penulak post drips from the heavens

kalimbuang luba’bana The front of the house will bring many blessings

kanan ili’ banuanna The space under the house becomes a spring of living water

Figure 21 The tomambubung started to call out the eulogy on the house walking and running from the highest point of the roof backwards.


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siasi ya lento’na kanan illi’ banuannabatu lento’ sippi’ padangpenulak to’do’ ri langi’ma’kalisu suan rara’ma’eran bokkon bulawantanna’ gayang iao pata’na

di tau-tau ampangan

disura’ sisareanna tannum kallaniao pata’nabala sappa’ namalela

illan lombon kadenganantambing kalimbuang sugi’tannum kallan iao pata’na

rinding me’dang peayoan

petuo di taruang gayang

ba’ tipanda soyalangi’

pamiring peamani kaso’ bussu bussu rara’sassang marru pepapana

pamiring peamani di iaoboko’ talaunna bubungannarampoanna kulu-kuluangngenan to tinanari, hu hu hu hu, hu hu hu hu

The supporting posts become hot springs for the house The earth is full of supporting posts The penulak post drips from the heavens Whirling around like a golden necklaceWith its stair as a golden post As a golden kris planted in the dike of its rice field And statues of deceased people at the threshold of the house Weaving-loom with wood carving for gold-en bracelets on the dike of its rice field The wall that divides two rooms of the house In the kitchens as place of blessings In the sleeping room as source of richness Like golden bracelets on the dike of its rice field The beautiful constructed walls resemble a mirror The supporting posts stand up strongly like golden krises Beams going beautifully accross like mas-ters of the highest nobility Rafters as place for the supporting girders that resemble golden necklaces Skirts made from beads beautifully and smartly made Rafters for constructing the roof with its ridge on topWhere perches the bird kulu-kulu Place for the birds at dawn, hu hu hu, hu hu hu

Of the huge pole in front of the house, which supports the high uprising roof, the penulak, it is said in the eulogy that raindrops trickle down from the heav-ens, so that through the front part of the house blessings will enter inside the house. Blessings are also expected in the kitchen where the offerings of pairan will be given to the deities, while the sleeping room will be a source of richness, of many generations.

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The most interesting post inside the house is called the petuo. This is the cen-tral post in the middle of the house between the guestroom and the sleeping room. It is said in the eulogy that this post has been erected marvellously, like a traditional sword that stands upright in the earth, directed to the heavens. The meaning of petuo is ‘the carrier of life’. This post is also called the tiang raja, which means ‘the royal post’. It is the main support for the ridge of the roof, the bubungan, and it secures the big plank, badong, which rises high under the longa in front of the house and rests on the buffalo head, tedong-tedong, which protrudes at the front of the house (see Figure 23 for the badong and the buffalo head).

Not only the crucial function of the petuo in the construction of the house explains the name ‘carrier of life’.6 This post expresses the relation with the heavens, while it is ‘like a sword standing upright in the earth’. The house

6 According to ambe’ Allolinggi, the petuo is more important than the big pole in front, the penulak. The petuo carries the whole house, while the penulak carries only the front part of the roof, the longa.

Figure 22One of the oldest traditional adat houses.


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Figure 23 The beam of the central badong goes from the front of the house back and is anchored in the petuo.

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can only prosper when blessings may be received from the the deities in the heavens and from the deities of the earth. In the petuo those two lifelines are symbolized.

When a marriage is conducted in the house, the offering of paisung is at-tached to a special bamboo stalk, the lalundun, which is tied to the petuo and the offering of pangkiki’ is placed on the floor in front of the petuo. These of-ferings are called dipande dewata, which means ‘provide food for the deities’. The petuo, the carrier of life, symbolizes as the royal post the dependency of the inhabitants of the house on the blessings of the dewata, the deities of the heavens and of the earth, especially for the house. By way of the petuo the dei-ties enter the house with their blessings, masakke.

Short Outline of the Traditional Adat Houses in the Mamasa Area

The house of the lowest category, inhabited by common people, has only one room. It is called longkarrin (Figure 24). It has no pelelen and no longa. The

Figure 24 Banua longkarrin, constructed without pelelen or longa. It is used by the common people.


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supporting posts of the house are put on one horizontal beam, longkarrin, which rests on stones in the earth. The next house in rank is the bala lelen, with two rooms, pelelen and a small longa, but only at the front part of the roof. Next we find the banua rapa’, banua bolong, banua sussu’, banua sura’, banua layuk, each with a longa in front supported by a penulak, and a longa in the rear. They have pelelen and four rooms.

The differences between the five houses of the highest category are defined by woodcarving and colours. The banua rapa’ has no colour and no woodcarvings. The banua bolong is plain black. The banua sussu’ (Figure 25) has simple colour-less woodcarvings7 and in front only one penulak. The banua sura’ (Figure 22) has intricate coloured woodcarvings and one or two penulak in front. The banua layuk (Figure 20) has also intricate coloured woodcarvings and two penulak in front.8

The Kitchen as Religious Centre for the Family and the Community

A house has been built as a dwelling place for a family and everybody who be-longs to the household. They realize that they stay dependent on the gods who allowed them to make a house in a part of their domain. This religious aware-ness to be continually in need of blessings from the gods is concentrated in the kitchen, where the three stones in the fireplace, lalikan, forms the centre. For that reason the kitchen will be inaugurated separately before the completion of the house. A pig is slaughtered and parts of the meat and the intestines are offered to the deities, the dewata. This happens in two ways. Small parts are put on a banana leave and offered to the gods of the earth, pangkiki’. Other and bigger parts are put on a rattan rack and offered to the gods of the heavens, paisung. After the offering, the meat of the pig will be prepared on the fire which burns between the three stones of the lalikan. Then it is eaten by the peo-ple who stay in the house. The first fire between the lalikan may not extinguish for at least three days and nights, and during that time fire from the fireplace may not be given to other people. In this way the lalikan in the kitchen is sanc-tified as the centre and source of life for the people who live in the house.

7 The sussu’ woodcarving is the oldest way of decorating wood. Nowadays it is only found in the oldest houses in the Mamasa area.

8 For the different houses of the Toraja’s and the difference in social ranks in relation to the houses, see Buijs 2006:26–33.

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The kitchen as religious centre is not restricted to the family who lives in the house. The kitchen as place of offering to the gods has a much wider use, which belongs also to the pairan. Everybody who has a task in the society realizes that he or she can only fulfil that task in a right and in a fruitful way if the gods are willing to give their powers of blessing. Those blessings are needed for the fam-ily members who stay in the house or elsewhere, but also for the welfare of the community in the village and the whole region. Even the fertility of the rice fields has to do with pairan.

In all the relationships in which people live, blessings from the gods are needed. However, for the receiving of blessings prayers are not enough. At least the offering of one or more animals is necessary. Without an offering, prayers are not valid for the gods and even could become a danger for the people who utter them. Those offerings are mostly brought in the kitchen. Not always. The rice priest, for instance, will bring some of his offerings near the rice fields be-fore the rice seeds are sowed. When a child is found dead near a waterfall, an of-fering is brought next to that place.9 Though, usually the offerings are brought

9 I witnessed the offering of a chicken near a waterfall where the other day two children drowned.

Figure 25 The banua sussu’ has the oldest woodcarvings, without colour. In front a wooden block used to unpeel rice grains by way of stamping them with long round poles.


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in the kitchen at the fireplace with its lalikan (Figure 26). That is the place where the gods are sought. The fire between the lalikan can be called ‘the centre of life’.

Pairan of the Family Takes Place in the KitchenThe kitchen is the place where almost all the personal religious activities hap-pen, the pairan. The person who has responsibility for the pairan is called to’ pairan. The word to’ means literally ‘tree’, and gets also the content of ‘the one with firmness’, ‘the founder’, ‘the owner’, and ‘the one who is responsible’. The father knows himself responsible for the pairan of his family, especially the children. This means that he approaches time and again10 the gods, dewata, by way of slaughtering a chicken11 in the kitchen and putting the offerings of pan-gkiki’ and paisung near the lalikan, while some pangkiki’ are also placed next to the water vessel, busso, and the water source, timbu.12 In this way the father

10 A pairan offering is not brought every day or every week. Ambe’ Allolinggi told me that in normal circumstances, when nobody is ill or nobody leaves the house for a long period, the offering is done once a year after the rice harvest.

11 The mother or grandmother may also slaughter a chicken with the purpose to bring an offering to the gods, but she is not allowed to bring the actual offering by way of pangkiki’ and paisung.

12 The water vessel and the water source are associated with the gods of the earth, while the fireplace in the kitchen with its three stones is associated with all the gods, from the heavens and from the earth.

Figure 26 The fireplace with the lalikan plus extra stones for pairan. The rack, para-para, is made above the fireplace. To the right a water container, busso.

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asks for blessings, health, and prosperity for his family. He brings special offer-ings in the kitchen when, for instance, a child goes to town for further study and will stay there for a long time. Besides this offering for his child, the father will also put rice grains in a small bamboo, wraps it in a cloth, and hangs it on a beam of the house. When the child returns, the rice will be cooked and eaten together. This custom belongs also to the pairan, since it contains a promise and at the same time a prayer for the wellbeing of the child.

Bapak Bongga Barana’ told me that he sometimes uses a special expression when a child is ill, namely ungkula’i pairan, which means ‘to make hot the ap-proach of the gods’. This expression refers to the hot fire between the three stones, the lalikan, in the fireplace of the kitchen. A chicken is slaughtered and de offerings are laid near the fire with the expression lakula’i-kula’i anna lamasakke anna marendeng, which means ‘it is made hot so that health and wellbeing may be received’. The same expression of the making hot of the pairan is also used when a child is born and is ritually entrusted to the care of the gods. I shall come back to it in the discussion of the rituals performed for a new-born child.

The gods are also sought when a family member undertakes a long jour-ney. Bapak Depparinding explains that somebody who departs for a long time to another place, touches with one foot the three stones of the lalikan, after slaughtering a chicken. Sometimes special prayers are uttered. This belongs also to the pairan.

Bapak Depparinding remembered the prayer and gave the words to me. They are very old. Especially the first words of the prayer originate from a higher language, according to Bapak Depparinding. He could not clarify them. He had heard them from his grandfather. The important part in the prayer is the connection of the gods with the three stones in the fireplace of the kitchen and the fire that is burning there.

Before departing for a long journey, the traveller must place one foot on a stone of the lalikan, while saying,

One, one, one motana’, monabi, momombonAllow your grandchild to die luangngi ampomu pa’depokoNot before you are extinguished anna mane pa’deMay the gods hear the prayer baraka doa bisa alla ta’ alla13

13 The expression alla ta’alla is probably derived from a name for the highest god in the language of the Mandar people, living in the coastal area at the west side of the Mamasa area. In the Mandar language the name is Allah Subwanahu Wa Ta’alla. Information from bapak R. Arrulangi in Mamasa.


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The fire between the stones in the fireplace of the kitchen must not be extin-guished during the time a family member stays in another place.

Another prayer asks the gods that the sun keeps on shining during that time. At the moment of leaving the house in the early morning, at the east side, the side of the rising sun, the prayer is uttered by the person who departs. When he descends the stairs of the house, he prays the following prayer at the mo-ment that his right foot, which earlier has touched the lalikan, now touches the earth.

Rays are shining. sindara’na massindara’May the rays of the red eyeof the sun not die sindara’na matta eja pa’depokobefore your grandchild dies anna mane pa’de ampomuMay the gods hear the prayer baraka doa bisa alla ta’ alla

Relatives who stay far from home are included in the prayers that always take the form of offerings in the kitchen. The father or the grandfather feels the re-sponsibility to maintain the relationship with the gods, dewata, and to search for their powers of blessing.

Interruption of Pairan in the kitchen during Mortuary RitualsIt is noticeable that the central position of the kitchen for the religious life of the people, and therefore pairan, is interrupted when somebody in the family passed away. During the time of the rituals for the dead, rambu solo’, the signifi-cance of the kitchen as centre and source of life is suspended. Bapak Bongga Barana’ explains that during the presence of a dead body in the house in the time before a burial, which takes sometimes one to two years, the banana leaf may not be opened, ummampa daun punti, to put small offerings on it, pang-kiki, for the gods of life. During that time the kitchen can be used to cook maize or meat, but not for offerings.

The ‘making hot’ of the pairan cannot go together with the rituals for the dead. Only after the time of the mortuary rituals has been concluded with the rituals mekolong (Buijs 2006:127) and ditobangngi barang, in which the mourn-ing people and the house where the dead person was kept are cleaned, life will receive focus again, with the kitchen as its centre and pairan as the main reli-gious activity. It is said that the rituals of death and the rituals for life are not allowed to walk together, tae’ mala sitekkaan. The problem is that the act of the slaughtering of a chicken or a pig is seen as an offering, which means that the gods are addressed to ask for blessings for life on earth. This is contradictory to

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the mortuary rituals. The family of the dead person is also not allowed to use another house and kitchen for pairan. The postponing of pairan concerns the family and not only the house of the family.

New Life Starts in the Kitchen

When a child is born, the first ritual that will be performed is dipatama dapo’, which means ‘it is brought into the kitchen’. The child is brought ritually in the kitchen, which forms the symbolic and religious heart of the life of the family. Through the ritual the child is connected with and brought inside the centre and source of life, which consists of the relation with the gods and with men.

It is very much interesting that the word pairan appears with respect to a new-born child. People call the ritual of the bringing of a new-born child in the kitchen dipopento’ pairanna. This means that the foundation of life is made strong in pairan. In pairan all relationships which have to do with life on earth come together. It concerns the relationship with the gods and also the relation-ship with each other in the family as well as in the community. Just after birth, the child is introduced in all those relationships. It forms the basis of its life. This laying of the foundation of life for a new-born child is called dipokko tama lino, to receive a firm seat on earth.

Lalikan, the Centre of the Kitchen, Centre of LifeThe bringing of an offering for a new-born child happens in the kitchen, and especially at the three stones, lalikan, in the fireplace. This is the place where the pans and pots are put above the fire to cook the food. The three stones of the lalikan have a special significance. They symbolize the three most im-portant gods of the Toraja’s. The first and most important god is called To-Metampa, meaning ‘the smith’. He is known as the creator. The second god, ToMeolaan, is expected to give protection and guidance like a shepherd. The third god, ToMemana’, can provide property and prosperity.

Although maybe Christian influence has restricted the mentioning of gods to only three, the expectations which are stated in connection with the three gods make clear that the people are convinced that they are dependent on their powers of blessing for daily life. Especially in pairan this all-embracing expectation becomes evident.

We understand this belief also in a notable expression which is used be-sides the other expressions for the first ritual performed for a new-born child.


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People say, dikula’-kula’i pairanna, which means ‘to make the pairan relation-ship hot’. The three stones of the lalikan, where the fire in the fireplace burns, are the most important place where the offerings for the gods are put. There the pairan relationship with the gods becomes hot. The lalikan is a striking symbol in the kitchen of the Toraja houses of the gods, the dewata, who are believed to determine the life of men. Because of the symbolic and religious importance of the three stones of the lalikan, they may not be replaced with-out offering a chicken to the gods.

Besides the three stones, two other stones are found in the kitchen of the traditional adat houses. In the village of Batarirak Bapak Bongga Barana’ showed me the five stones in the fireplace. In another village, Rante Buda, I visited a family living in one of the oldest traditional adat houses in the whole area. Here, Bapak Demmangiring14 confirmed the explanation of Bapak Bong-ga Barana’. The two extra stones next to the lalikan are used to bring offerings to the dewata, the deities in the heavens and the earth.

In ordinary houses where people of lower rank live, mostly six stones are found in the fireplace (figure 27). With six stones, two pots can be put on the fire at the same time. However, the two extra stones in the fireplace of an adat

14 Bapak Demmangiring belongs to the nobility. He has an important function as leader in the region, kepala desa. His father, ambe’ Allolinggi, has given me much information about pairan offerings brought in the kitchen of his adat house.

Figure 27 A kitchen of an ordinary house. In the fireplace six stones are used for cooking.

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house are not used as an extension of the cooking facilities, but as a place for offerings. A man of high nobility, living in an adat house, has a religious re-sponsibility, not only for his own family, but also for the community in the village and even in the whole region.

Pangngukusan Rupa Tau, Rituals after a Child is BornThe rituals that are held after a child is born are together called with the col-lective term pangngukusan rupa tau, which means ‘the first sound that is given by a human being’.15 In all these rituals the gods are asked through offerings for their powers of blessing for the new life. At the same time the rituals function as a sort of announcement to the gods that a new human being enters in the relationship with them. We shall see that neglecting these rituals can become a serious problem in the further life of the child.

The first ritual for a new-born child, dipatama dapo’, as mentioned above, has to be followed by two other rituals at a later time. The next one is called dipalangngan para, which means ‘the putting of the offering on the bamboo rack above the fireplace’. Again a chicken is slaughtered and small parts are offered on a banana leaf to the gods of the earth.

In the ritual dipalangngan para the offering of the paisung, with bigger parts of the slaughtered chicken, is not placed near the lalikan, but on the bamboo rack, para-para, above the fireplace, as an offering for the gods of the heavens. On this rack firewood for the fire in the fireplace is kept, often together with the pots and pans used for the cooking. Sometimes also food provisions are kept on this rack.

Just as in the first ritual, the gods are prayed by means of the offerings to give powers of blessing for the new life. This happens also in the last ritual for the new-born child, dipaisungngi. In this name the word paisung appears which means that the emphasis now lies on the offering for the gods of the heavens and at the same time the spirits of ancestors who returned to the heav-ens. The importance of this last ritual for the child is underlined by the choice of the animal that is slaughtered, not a chicken but a pig. Besides the rela-tionship with the gods also the connection with the ancestors is important for the child in its life. This is called ‘to make strong pairan’, dipopengnganda’ pairan.

15 Van der Veen (1940:391) gives the explanation of the word uku’, which forms the stem of the noun pangngukusan.


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Angka’, the Raising of a Part of the Offering

When the last ritual for the new-born child, dipaisungngi, is held, an action takes place in which in a special way the prayer for blessings for the child is expressed. A part of the pig that is slaughtered is raised to the child, diangka’. If the child is a girl, a part of a front leg, the right shoulder, buku siruk, is raised and if the child is a boy, a part of a hind leg, the shin-bone, buku lampa. In this symbolic act the offering to the gods is associated with the child, so that the offering gets the meaning of a personal prayer for the child to receive blessings. The relationship with the gods, dewata, is represented and confirmed.

It is noteworthy that the same act of angka’ happens again at the moment that two people are bound together in a marriage. The angka’ of both buku siruk and buku lampa at the same time, points to the request for a good relationship of the new family with the gods (Figure 28). The ritual functions as a prayer16 for the bride and bridegroom and their future children to receive blessings from

16 Because the ritual is in fact a prayer, sometimes the expression angka’ is not used. Ambe’ Allolinggi says that the expression paisung would be better.

Figure 28 In modern times the tradition of angka’ is still used for a bride and bridegroom. On the small table lie the angka’ of buku siruk and buku lampa.

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the gods, good heath and prosperity, so that they may become wealthy, ma-sakke’ anna marendeng ammu makaka. This part of marriage rituals belong to the pairan of the parents of both sides. Therefore it is understandable that the divorce of a married couple is called ‘they don’t maintain the pairan of their parents’, tae’ mengnganda’ pairan lako tomatua.

The prayer uttered at the time of angka’ during a marriage goes as follows:

Susi mi tee, dio mi te paisung, dikuamoia, sae na ke inde menomba memala’ matin olomu dewata to randan kuasa e, to umokko angngenan malangka.Indemi paisunna anak ampoku e, ditula’ tosanga to kawin (nakua dodo anna uto).

Indemi paisungna e aka la lappa’mi dio indo’na ambe’na la lako mi banu-anna la tanan mi dapo’na

lamubengan tallu bulinna, lamuben-gan kamasakkean, lamubengan pa’ewananan, lamubengan pa’banne tauan,anna malara masakke marendeng illalan pebanuaanna,la kembua barri’,la tilo’do’ kano-kano,langngan allo pada langngan tua’na,kendek allo pada kendek parayanna,langngan i tanete lamupasitammu tara’de silapik la rokko bamba

lamupasitammu dandana lappo’ terean batu-batuanna malara ma’alang ponno’ ma’panito tilummi

Just like this offeringit is said thatthey come to worship andrequest before the face of the gods who have full power, sitting in the highest place.This is the offering, grandchildren, who are named to marry (here the name of the man and the wife are mentioned).This is the offering, because they will leave their father and mother and will make their own household and kitchenMay you give a full incomeMay you give welfareMay you give propertyMay you give offspringAnd may they be prosperous and healthy in their householdAnd may they bear a lot of fruit, and all the time growing,day after day into their old dayEvery day they receive more and more blessingsOn the mountain you will meet the racks for drying the rice that fill the areaYou will meet with rows of bundles of rice like stones in a rowSo that the rice barn will be filled even to the platform in front of the door


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ma’ de’de’kan palungan,

anna la ma’bala tana sito’do’

anna la undadian ma’rupa taumuane la ma’gandanganna baine la burake

napolalan lamakamban bulola marapuan tallanganna ma’subu amindu ra,ma’kaponnanau,ma udung guntu ra ma’tekken bassi, malulung bura-bura.Dio pelaminan, dio ia luba’ba sasinangei, dio pelaminan.

So that the rice is stamped in the rice blockand there are many places for the water buffaloesand receive many childrenThe boys will become tamboursAnd the girls lead the religious ritualsSo that the offspring will prosper like the small bamboosand they will be happy to see their progeny until their old ageUntil they use an iron walking-stick and are bent and have grey hair.This is the utterance to ask for blessings spoken in the front part of the house.

The Kitchen Has a Personal Character

If people sell their house because of lack of money or because of another rea-son, they are not allowed to sell the kitchen together with the house. This does not mean that the kitchen has to be taken down or detached from the house. The kitchen means in this case its centre, the fireplace, and more specific the three stones, the lalikan. At the time of the inauguration of the house a pig was slaughtered in the kitchen and offered to the gods through paisung and pangkiki’ in the fireplace at the lalikan. This personal act of pairan done by the family may not be erased. Sometimes the fireplace has to be cleaned, but the ashes may never be thrown away totally. Before cleaning the place, an egg has to be broken and the content be poured on the ashes, diborongngi tallu manuk.

When the family leaves the house, the three stones are taken to the new dwelling place as a symbol and a prayer for the nearness of the gods, also in the new house. Usually the family puts some of the ashes from between the three stones in a bamboo container and takes it with them to the new fireplace. This is called ditampoi dapo’, which means ‘the kitchen is covered’.17 The new fire-place and especially the place between the three stones is covered with the

17 The same expression is used when a kitchen is inaugurated in a new adat house and the fireplace is going to be covered with sand and clay.

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ashes from the previous one as a symbol for the continuation of the relation-ship with the gods. In this way the new kitchen will be the centre of the family again and the centre of life. It will become again the centre of the religion, aluk, of the family. The inauguration takes place by slaughtering a pig on the new fireplace and to present it through paisung and pangkiki’ to the gods. The following prayer is sent together with the soul of the pig to the gods:

Dewata iao tangnganna langi’, illalan matanna allo,dewata iao ulunna salu,napomasakke, napomarendeng marupa tau,mebengan marupa tau, mebengan pa’ewananan,ia mala ia angngenan ma’bulku-bukuki’.

Deities above in the middle of the heavens, in the sun,deities at the headwaters of the rivergive the people blessings and make them prosperousgive them children and propertiesmay our bones flourish in this place.

The offering is called the ‘bringing upwards’ and ‘bringing in’ of the pairan. This expression is related to the position of the kitchen, which is built on posts, together with the whole floor of the house. The ‘bringing upwards’ points also to the purpose of the rituals, namely establishing a relationship with the gods.

Massalu, the Investigation into the Cause of a Calamity

The necessity of the laying of a religious foundation for the relationship with the gods, dipopentosan pairanna, comes into sight painfully in the life of somebody whose parents neglected the rituals after birth, pangngukusan rupa tau. Without those rituals the relationship with the gods was not established. The foundation was not laid.

The Toraja’s are convinced that sooner or later misfortune, illness, or other hardship must be expected. Especially three kinds of diseases are mentioned. They indicate the dissatisfaction of the gods, because the pairan has been vio-lated. Those diseases or disorders are blindness, buta, madness, tattasan, and paralysis in one leg, mate sese.

If this happens in the life of somebody, the help of people with authority in the relationship with the gods is called. Often this means that some elderly


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men, who have or have had a leading function in the community, are asked for their help. Mostly a leader of the adat rules, a tokeada’, and a rice priest, toso’bok, and a priest in mortuary rituals, tomebalun, are involved. They are es-teemed by the society as pillars of the religion. They are called the tomepairan, which means the religious leaders who are supposed to maintain and uphold the pairan. Symbolically they received the title ‘the three handles of the axe’.

When a problem occurs in the community, the three tomepairan sit down together and talk with the relevant people. This procedure is called massalu. They will come to a conclusion, which most often points to a lack in attention toward the gods, the dewata. Maybe a promise to slaughter a certain animal at a certain time was not fulfilled, or the birth rituals were not performed by the parents of the person who was involved in the calamity. It means that the gods are still waiting for the offerings. They can only be satisfied when the miss-ing animals are slaughtered after all, and offered to them through paisung and pangkiki’. In this way the misery can stop.

Ana’ Malayu, a Child that Died before the Offerings Took Place

The importance to receive a foundation in the relationship with the gods be-comes visible also when a child dies before the rituals of pangngukusan rupa tau are completed. Such a child cannot be buried in the usual way and also not at the usual place. In the Mamasa area the body of the child will be buried under the rice granary, the alang, which is build on posts just as a traditional Toraja house. The Sa’dan Toraja use a hole in a tree to bury the body. The im-portant thing, however, is that no mortuary rituals accompany the burial, and the body cannot be buried where others are laid to rest.

The expression for a child that dies before the rituals are accomplished is ana’ malayu, which means ‘a withered child’. Usually people never mention the fact that the rituals which establish the relationship with the gods, dipo-pentosan pairanna, were not held. Rather it is said that ‘the teeth were not yet growing’, or ‘the child still resembled water’, balinna uai. People are afraid to state that the relationship with the gods was not yet made, so that the mortu-ary rituals, which enable the transfer to the realm of the death and eventually to the world of the gods, could not be performed.

Nevertheless, people have invented a way around the problem that a child may not be buried in the usual way. They ‘plant’ teeth in the mouth of the dead child. Those teeth can be cigarettes or sticks with a golden colouring. Then the chickens and sometimes also the pig of the rituals that connect a new-born

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child with the gods and the ancestors, the pangngukusan rupa tau, are slaugh-tered too. After these actions the dead child can be buried with the usual mor-tuary rituals at the normal burial site.

Pairan in All Aspects of Life

Pairan as the Main Road of Life, Batana Pairan‘The main road of life is build on pairan, namely batana pairan’, stated an el-derly man, Nenek Lento Dessiande, who used to hold an important position as adat leader in the region Rambu Saratu, near Mamasa. Often he is involved in problems that people experience in their personal life or in the community. Together with other men, most of them already rather old, but still respected because of their wisdom and knowledge about matters of adat rules, he solves disputes. In my conversation with him he sighed that he felt very much con-cerned about so many people who do not understand any more the impor-tance of pairan. They are not conscious of their religious responsibility in their personal life. He said that those people must be aware that they are insulting the gods by their negligence. It is as if they hold them for stupid, mepa’tomaroi dewata.

When we ask elderly people, they often explain how in former times pairan permeated all life, individually and also the life of the community. According to them no distinction was made between a religious side and a secular side in life. The gods were everywhere.

Personal PairanThe pairan concerns people in their individual life. This is called pairan batang or pairan batang kale, the pairan that regards somebody privately. This means that each and everyone have the religious task to maintain the relationship with the gods. The fulfilment of this duty makes people liable to receive bless-ings, whereas the lack of pairan probably brings trouble. It does not mean that each person has to slaughter chickens in the kitchen of the house where he or she lives. The offering to the gods is a religious duty of the father or the grand-father. However, pairan means also the personal observance of a way of life that is believed to have been stipulated by the gods. In this respect especially the notion of commands and prohibitions are decisive. In one word, the pe-mali. For instance, a man is not allowed to take the wife of another man. This infringement of the personal pairan will probably have serious consequences, narampoiki saki’ kamai ke tae’ki umpepairanan kaleta. This expression means ‘severe illness will hit us if we don’t observe our pairan’.


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Behaviour in daily life belongs to the personal pairan batang. An old man in the village Sumarorong, who used to have a leading position in the community, explains that the relationship between people has directly to do with the will of the gods, and thus with pairan. People are supposed not to soil the name of somebody else, and words that are spoken must be chosen, tula’-tula’ dipilei. You must not speak too quickly, dau’ massira’ ma’kada, not walk too quickly, dau’ massira’ menono’, not decide too quickly, dau’ massira’ tekke, not desire what belongs to somebody else, dau’ kailui aka-akanna padamu.

An important aspect of the personal pairan batang comes into view when a family member has passed away. The activities in regard to this pairan do not concern the slaughtering of chickens in the kitchen and offerings to the gods. This is not done during the time of mortuary rituals. The pairan batang in this case consists of pemali, prohibitions and commands.

The most important pemali with respect to death is the prohibition for the family of a deceased person to eat rice. This is called mero’o. Rice is the main food, given by the gods for life on earth. To eat rice would be contradictory to the state of the dead person and would be experienced as a sort of insult regarding the deceased and even regarding the gods. If somebody neglects the pairan, it would be an offence against the gods who gave the rules. It could have repercussions for the family and even for the entire community. The expression for this kind of offence is tae’ umpepairanan kalena, not observing the personal relation to the gods.

The prohibition to eat rice during mortuary rituals is taken seriously by most people. This appears also in the fear of people that maybe somewhere in other parts of Indonesia a family member has passed away, while the death message has not yet arrived. To protect oneself from violating the pairan batang, some-times people bite in a piece of iron before they start to eat rice. This should compensate a possible infringement.

In regard to death, the requirements of pairan have an individual charac-ter and are therefore also called pairan batang. To comply with the rules at the time of the rituals for the dead, however, has also an importance for the whole community. Therefore the priest who officiates in the mortuary rituals, tomebalun, sees to it that the pairan rules for that particular time are obeyed in the private life of the members of the mourning family and if necessary in the life of everybody in the community. That is why the pairan batang in this case is also called pairan to mate, the religious responsibility in regard to death. The priest of the mortuary rituals has to see to the obeying of those pairan rules. He has also a task to oversee the division of the property of someone who has passed away. It is strongly prohibited that the goods which the dead person brought into his or her marriage, are taken by the other partner after his or her

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death. This offence is called dimamum. If this infringement of the pairan to mate happens, the tomebalun has to rectify the fault.

The tomebalun has also the task to see to it that always one or more ani-mals are slaughtered when somebody has passed away. This belongs to the pairan to mate as well. When, for instance, a dead body is found in the river, the tomebalun arranges that the head of the nearby village urges the community to slaughter a pig. If this would be omitted, the gods would not be happy and the whole village had to fear for repercussions like an inundation or a landslide.

Especially in a discussion with Bapak Yavet Sondoklangi’ the personal fulfil-ment of pairan batang kale was explained. His father was an important adat leader in the region Bambam. He lived in the village Salu Tabang. The son Ya-vet knows the practice of the pairan from his own experience in his parental home. He also remembers very well how the pairan functioned in the com-munity of the village where he grew up. He tells that blessings and protection from the gods, the dewata, might be expected if the pairan was observed, also personally in daily life. The important thing was to refrain from reprehensi-ble deeds and words and to live according the adat rules that originated from the gods.

Bapak Yavet gives in the first place an example of a husband who goes on a journey to another region, while leaving his wife at home. Then the woman has to live according to the wishes of the dewata. This is called mepairan. Only in this way the mission of the husband can succeed and obtain blessings from the gods. If his wife receives another man in the house or gives something to another man, then the husband is in danger to get an accident and there is a big chance that he has no success in the work that he does.

However, the demand to comply to pairan means for the wife not only a obligation, given by the gods, to remain faithful to her husband. She must also observe prohibitions, pemali, that have to do in a symbolic way with the suc-cess of the mission of her husband and his safe return home. The wife is re-quired to abstain from cleaning and sweeping the house during the time that her husband stays in another place. She is also not allowed to throw rubbish through the opening of the door or out of a window. Such an action could be interpreted symbolically. It could be interpreted as if she has her husband in mind and would like to throw him permanently out of the house.18

18 See also the requirements for women during a headhunting raid, further on in this Chapter.


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Aside from requirements of the pairan in a marriage, Bapak Yavet mentions also many regulations which belong to the individual pairan batang. They re-gard especially behaviour in which harm or damage is done to somebody else. For instance stealing, slandering, avidity, arrogance, belong to manners that are contrary to a life according to the pairan of the relationship with the gods. If all those things are avoided, no hindrance is raised for the gods to give bless-ings. This does not mean that everybody in an individual way has to perform the offerings of pairan in the kitchen. This is the task of the head of the fam-ily. In fulfilling that task, he represents all members of the family. From the husband it may, however, be expected that he teaches his wife, children and grandchildren the requirements that the gods demand from them. They be-long to the batana pairan, the highway of the relationship with the gods and with each other.

Pairan of the Government, Pairan LembangIn the time that the traditional religion, the aluk, permeated the whole society, also the government had to obey the pairan. The people were governed by the adat leaders, the tokeada’. The adat as a system of rules, prohibitions, and de-mands, has to be followed by the people. It defines the structure of the society. People believe that the rules came from the gods and were not constructed and composed by men. They were convinced that the adat came in ancient times, together with the sons of the gods, the tomanurun. Therefore, complying with the adat rules in society and in private life was not like observing the rules made by men, but to obey the gods. This means that not only the personal life of the Toraja’s, but also the ruling of the society, the traditional governmental system, was part of the religion. It belonged also to the pairan and was called pairan lembang.19

Especially people who had received a task in the ruling of a village or a re-gion, the tokeada’, had to attend to the pairan, which means that they had to slaughter from time to time a chicken to be offered to the dewata in their own kitchen. Their task in the society belonged to the religion and they had to ask for the blessings of the gods for their region, lembang.

Especially in the area of Mamasa the adat rules developed to a regulation in which not the harsh law of retaliation, an eye for an eye, was practised, but the law of life or the law of love, as Toraja’s like to call it. In this law always the

19 The literal meaning of lembang is ‘proa’ and also ‘valley’. People who live in a mountain-ous area usually choose their dwelling place in the valleys where the rivers give fertility to the earth. The expression lembang received also the meaning ‘region’, ‘place of residence’.

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punishment is conditioned by the ability of the perpetrator to undergo the sentence. The idea is that there must be the prospect of improvement of the relationship that was damaged by the offender. A rich man, for instance, could be sentenced to pay a water buffalo, but for a poor man a pig or even a chicken would be enough, dipopakaleppe manuk. This adat of life, ada’ tuo, is contrary to the adat of death, the ada’ mate. Old people who in former times had to implement the adat and had to find the right punishment, explained that they had to ungkula’i pairan, which means ‘to make warm the relationship with the gods’, so that the guilty person could return to the proper relationships in the community, dipasule tama randanna buku rara.

It is important to remark that the whole complex of regulations belongs to the pairan as a religious responsibility of the adat leaders. In regard to their function in the society, they must therefore perform the pairan requirements in their own kitchen, in order to ask for the powers of blessing from the gods. It makes sense that old men who used to have a task in the adat, have great con-cerns nowadays about government people who are not seldom very busy with self-enrichment and give favourable positions to their relatives.

Pairan of the Cultivation of RiceIt is noteworthy that the rice priest, toso’bok, also called tomassuba’, is involved with pairan with respect to the cultivation of rice. In his own kitchen he, or she, has to show the dependence on the blessings of the gods, especially the god of the rice, ToTiboyong. This religious responsibility is called mepairanna totiboyong. To fulfil this task the toso’bok has made a special lalikan in the fire-place of his kitchen, where he has to slaughter and sacrifice a chicken from time to time. Sometimes also a pig must be slaughtered near the rice field (Figure 31).

Apart from the requirement to slaughter chickens and pigs as offerings for the gods, the rice priest must also keep certain precepts in the framework of pairan.

In the time that the traditional religion dominated the cultivation of the rice, the toso’bok had to sit outside his house during the night when the time of the beginning of the rice season was nearby. He looked into the sky to search for the first signs of a special constellation of stars.20 After spotting the right stars he

20 It is not clear which constellation of the stars. The rice priest himself calls it the asi-asi, while others call it the constellation of the chicken, manuk. See Nooy-Palm 1979:166–8 for this constellation.


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had to start himself with the opening of the ground in a rice field. He always used for this action the curved wooden digging tool, the peleko (Figure 29; Buijs 2006:114). This small ritual of the opening of the ground, named ma’tossok, in-dicated for the community not only the beginning of a new year of rice cultiva-tion, but also a new religious year.

Another requirement in the context of the pairan in relation to the begin-ning of the rice season was, that the toso’bok had to keep the main door of his house closed for three days and nights after the first grains were sowed into the rice field.

During all phases of the rice cultivation the rice priest performs rites in or-der to request blessings from the gods. Before the sowing of the rice in the field, for instance, he had to slaughter a pig on the small dike surrounding the rice field, and put some of its blood on the grains that would be sowed21 (Figure 31).

Rice is not only the main food for the Toraja’s, but, at least in the time of the traditional religion, it had also the meaning of food that came to the earth in former times together with the sons of the gods, the tomanurun. It is obvious that rice and therefore also the cultivation of rice has a religious dimension. As a godly source of power for people in their daily life it enables in particular the descendants of the sons of the gods, the nobility, to live on earth on their way back to the heavens.

There is still another symbolic complex related to the rice. Just like the sons of the gods could proliferate on earth because of their marriage with the daughters of the gods of the earth, in the same way rice can only grow and pro-duce a harvest when the powers of blessing from the heavens come together with the powers of blessing of the earth (Buijs 2006:124).

More than any other crop, the cultivation of rice has a godly dimension, in which especially the ancestors are involved. Their daily life on earth was made possible through the rice. After their death they returned to the heavens. The expression for the spirits of the nobility who could return to the heavens is membali dewata, which means ‘change to become gods’. After arriving in the heavens, they are supposed to give special attention to the rice, which is grow-ing in the area where they came from, and where their noble family still lives.

Because of the concentration of the gods, dewata, on the prosperous grow-ing of the rice plants, special restrictions are in place during the cultivation of rice. The dewata may not be distracted from their activity to give blessings to the rice plants. The graves, especially the graves of the nobility that are made in the middle of rice fields (Figure 30), may not be disturbed. This means also

21 The slaughtering of the pig and the sprinkling of the blood on the rice grains constitute the offering. Paisung and pangkiki’ are not necessary.

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Figure 29 The rice priest, toso’bok, is the first one who puts the peleko in the ground.

Figure 30 Graves of the nobility in the middle of rice fields.


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that burials of people from the nobility are not conducted during this period in which the rice plants are growing, called panda.22 It is the religious quiet time between the greening of the rice plants when they are thinned out23 and the harvest when the rice is cut from the fields and brought into the rice barns.

Just like during the time of the mortuary rituals, the minds of the people may not be directed to life and rituals for life. This means that rituals for thanksgiv-ing and also marriages are not allowed24 from the moment that the rice plants become green, bulung pare, until the harvest, meallo. This time in which every-body is quietly waiting for the fruits of the rice, is called malillin panda. The motivation for this malillin panda is, that the spirits of the ancestors, who are supposed to give blessings for the rice, would maybe become much more in-terested in the happy events and as a result weaken their attention for the rice. Many pemali, prohibitions and commands, have to do with this consideration. All those regulations belong to the pairan of the rice cultivation.

I already mentioned the prohibition to enter the sites of the graves and the postponement of the marriage ceremony. However, there are more restrictions which have to be complied with. Wood may not be chopped and certainly not wood with a red colour, the colour of ill rice plants. The attention to the colour red, might trigger the disease into affecting the rice plants. That is also why an ingredient of the betel chew, the red wood pela’an, may not be collected in the woods during the time of panda. The red colour could be an incitement that the rice plants become ill and a bad harvest would be the result.

The growing and the bearing of fruit of the rice plants have male sides as well as female sides. The female powers of fertility have to cooperate with the male powers of blessing from the heavens. Therefore it is not an amazing fact that a man as well as a woman can perform as a rice priest. Their task lies pri-marily in the pairan, the slaughtering of a chicken in the kitchen as a prayer for blessings from the gods, just like the adat leaders fulfil their task of pairan related to their calling in the society. However, the adat leader will never pronounce a prayer with words, although his actions in pairan are similar to prayers.

22 Ambe’ Allolinggi told me that burials are no problem during the time of panda, on condi-tion that the rice fields are not disturbed. For instance, during funeral rituals it is prohib-ited to repair or improve the dikes around the rice fields.

23 The name for this activity is tumorak. I come back further on in this Chapter to this spe-cial time in relation to the fertility ritual ma’dondi.

24 Just before the beginning of the panda the rice priest, toso’bok, calls out loudly, ‘It will be forbidden to marry and to divorce. If you want to do it, do it now!’

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This differs from the task of a toso’bok. In regard to pairan he or she not only slaughters chickens in his kitchen, but he utters also a prayer before he slaugh-ters a pig near the rice field (Figure 31). This happens before the rice grains are sowed in the water of the rice field. At the moment he stabs the knife in the heart of the pig, he asks in beautiful words excuse for taking the life of the animal and he explains the reason. The soul, malaikat, of the pig will ascend to the gods in the heavens including the ancestors who became gods. The prayer can even reach the highest god, the creator ToMetampa, as we hear from the prayer that I quote below. After arriving in the heavens the soul of the pig has to deliver the message, which the toso’bok had pronounced in his prayer. There the question is asked ‘why they have cut your throat?’ Then the soul gives the message. The sending of a message to the gods through the soul of an animal is called mammangngi. The purpose, of course, is to pray for the fertility of the rice and thus for a rich harvest at the end.

iko te to mabulu induk, to mamma’ri tappian,to mamma’ri soyok, iya te angku la kattui senga’mulaku tida’ tondon penaimmu, aka laku pasan ko te’e,kedikutanaiko kumua akara napokattu bambakollongmu napotida’ tondon penaimmu,tala tilu’ko tala karemban,mukua ditununa’ mangngambo’ anna tisopa’parena,anna dipealai parena, la’binna naandena allian tedong.

The translation of the prayer goes as follows:

You, with hair of the black sugar-palm fibreYou, who are in deep sleep; you sleep fruitfulSo that I shall cut your sideI am going to sever your sublime arrowBecause I shall give you this messageIf they are going to ask you,‘Why did they cut off the entranceof your throat that was severed,your sublime arrow,what was the purpose, it’s not clear’Then you answer that you were slaughteredat the moment of sowing the riceso that the harvest will be abundantwhen the crop will be gathered


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the food will be superfluousand a water buffalo can be bought.

Sometimes the rice priest slaughters a chicken on a dike at the border of the rice field. The prayer to be sent with its soul to the highest god in the heavens, ToMetampa, goes as follows:

iko te inde manuk mapia bulu e,to urrangngi re’dena alloiya te angku la kattu sunga’mu,laku tida’ tondon penaimmuaka laku pasanko te’e,ullambi’ko to Metampa nakuaakara napokattu bamba kollomunapotida’ tondon penaimmutala tilu’ko tala karemban lamukuannatununa’ mangngambo’anna pealai la parena la na ande silambi’,la’binna na ande na allian tedong na allian bai,na allian kondo.

The translation of the prayer that is sent through the soul of a chicken, goes as follows:

You, chicken with your beautiful featherswho listens to the glowing sunNow I am going to cut off your lifeI am going to sever your sublime arrowBecause I give you the messageSo that when you arrive at the CreatorAnd he says, ‘What is the reason that your throat is severedAnd your sublime arrow has been cut offwhat was the purpose, it’s not clear’I was slaughtered for the sowing of the riceWith the prayer that the rice that is received will be enoughAnd moreover it will be possible to buy a water buffaloAnd to buy a pig and to buy a big rice field.

In order to obtain a good harvest, the rice priest has to go also to the source of the water that flows into the rice field, close to the forest, to bring offerings to the god of the earth, ToTiboyong, who has to give blessings for the fertility

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too. Without water the rice could not grow in the fields. At this moment the toso’bok does not utter a prayer, but he puts small parts of a slaughtered chick-en on banana leaves near the water stream that originates in the woods, the wilderness. For the growing of the rice and its fertility, besides blessings from the heavens also blessings from the wilderness are necessary. The toso’bok has to attend to both sides.

Pairan Tedong

The water buffalo, the Toraja name is tedong, has a special place in the Toraja society. Especially in mortuary rituals the animal has an important function. When the numerous guest are entering a village where a mortuary rituals is held, beautiful decorated buffaloes and big pigs, carried in special made small Toraja houses, or hanging from bambu sticks (Figure 15), are brought by family members and guests.

The buffaloes are guided by a man who holds a rope that gives him power over the huge animal. This is possible because the rope is fastened at a rattan

Figure 31 A pig is slaughtered and the blood goes with the rice grains in the rice field to obtain a rich harvest at the end.


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ring that goes through the nose of the animal (Figure 32). The decorations and also the admiring exclamations make clear that buffaloes invoke special feel-ings in people. This is not true for all kinds of buffaloes. One particular kind has clearly a special place, namely the one that has a skin with white and black spots. They are called tedong doti.25

The black and white spotted water buffaloes are only found in this area, in West and East Toraja, and nowhere else in the world (Figure 33). In other parts of Indonesia the water buffaloes are plain black and sometimes white. The doti lives only in the area of Toraja. It makes sense that this animal has received a special position among the Toraja’s, very different from the common black ones.

25 The doti is the most valuable animal. It belongs to the highest nobility. Its black and white spots are most regular distributed over the skin. The quantity of the dots points to rich-ness, like the stars in the night sky, doti langi’, the spots of the heavens. A doti with a white head is called doti tengnge’ and a black water buffalo with a white head is called a bonga.

Figure 32 Buffaloes are guided with a rope through the nose. When they have white spots, their value is very high.

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The common buffaloes are often used for hard labour, for instance to draw a plough through muddy rice fields (Figure 34). When the work is done or when the rice plants grow in the fields, the black buffaloes lie in a mud pool or are found loose on waste grounds. However, never so a tedong doti. This animal is not used to pull the plough (Nooy-Palm 1979:190; Volkman 1985:71) and will not be found lying nicely in a warm mud pool. This belongs to the pairan te-dong. For a doti the best grass and other plants are sought by its shepherd, mostly a small boy who stays the whole day with the animal, looking for the right food and preventing it from walking in the rice fields where it should have to be chased away. At the end of the day the boy will wash the buffalo in a river or from an irrigation canal. Then he leads it to the house of the owner where it used to get a place under the floor between the posts that sup-port the house.

Superficially seen, all those arrangements for the care of a doti could be explained from the value of the animal. Because the doti is rare, the price is very high. The rarity, however, is not the only reason for the price and the special treatment of the doti. Kruyt (1923–24:304) already remarked the following:

The dappled buffalo has to do with the position and status of people. When a family of low status possesses a buffalo which calves a doti, the animal has to be given to somebody of the nobility. It is unthinkable that a common man would possess a doti. Everybody agrees that this symbol of status may not be misused by people of low status. It would be absurd.

Figure 33 The spotted buffalo, tedong doti, is only found in the area of Toraja.


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At funerals usually many water buffaloes are slaughtered. The most important buffalo, however, that will accompany the deceased noble person to his desti-nation eventually in the heavens, is a doti.26

All the regulations with their prohibitions and requirements concerning the spotted buffaloes belong to the pairan tedong. In present time the pairan tedong is often forgotten or neglected, so that also common people can pos-sess a doti and slaughter such a buffalo of high status at the funeral of a family member.27

Elderly people who still stay within the scope of the traditional religion, but also many people who entered the Christian church, feel not comfortable with this development. When the pairan is violated, the gods are not happy.

26 It is understandable that the relation to status and the rarity of the dappled buffalo affects very much its value. Sometimes an amount of a billion Rupiahs, about 70,000 Euro, is paid for one animal.

27 Volkman (1985:153) writes that the nobility is not happy with this development which they see as a devaluation of their status. Volkman (1985:135) calls this change a transfor-mation of capital into new status.

Figure 34 A black water buffalo can be used to work in a rice field.

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Especially people of the aluk, the traditional religion, are convinced that the structure of the society is not an arbitrary choice of men, although they maybe are in a position to exert power. An institution of the gods may not be violated. Change of the structure could have serious repercussions. The pairan cannot be neglected just like that.

Modern Developments

The governmental and religious developments since the arriving of the Dutch in 1907, have caused big changes. The Dutch colonial authority could be established without much resistance in Mamasa. This mountain area had been very isolated because of its remote position and the bad roads. At that time the people still lived within the traditional structures of the religion, the aluk. In order to be able to quickly gain control over the area, the Dutch used prominent people in the Toraja community, the parengnge. Those peo-ple belonged to the nobility, the adat leaders, whose authority was already recognized in the society. They complied with the new government and were allowed to continue their ruling of the communities, although they had to report now to the new administration.

Together with the coming of the Dutch, changes in religious traditions and convictions started to happen and to influence people privately and as a soci-ety. I will discuss four matters.

1. Prohibition to perform certain rituals2. Changes in the cultivation of rice3. Changes through the coming of the Christian church4. Concerns of the aluk generation.

1 Prohibition to Perform Certain RitualsThe colonial administration of the Dutch, which started in 1907 in Mamasa, did not alter purposely or forcefully the religion of the Toraja’s and the tradi-tions which were connected with it. Only in those cases where the govern-ment was afraid that a traditional practice could affect negatively the ethical conduct of the people, or could be harmful because of violent behaviour, such practices had been forbidden. I discuss two traditions:

a. the fertility ritual ma’dondib. the headhunting ritual bulu londong.


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a The Fertility Ritual Ma’dondiThe fertility ritual ma’dondi, in which men were called to join women in the rice field (see for a discussion of the ritual Buijs 2006:109–26), took place at the beginning of the rice season when the rice plants had to be thinned out. This activity, done by women, was called tumorak. The fertility ritual was prohibited by the Dutch government, who was afraid that the meeting of women and men in the rice field could affect negatively the tranquillity of the society. According to explanations I got from women who still remembered the practice of the ritual, since they were involved themselves, the concern of the government was understandable.

Men who passed a rice field were called by women who were busy to thin out the rice plants. The men were seduced with special songs28 and gestures to en-ter the rice field and to take the women on their laps, holding them around their

28 See for the songs Buijs 2006:120–3. For comparable erotic songs in Flores see L. Quaaden, Go’ét Bggéjang: Gezangen en dansliederen uit noordoost Manggarai (Flores, Indonesië), Nijmegen: Radboud University, Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies, 2009.

Figure 35 Women show in which way they called men in the rice field during the ma’dondi ritual.

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waist (Figure 35). At that moment it did not come to intimate acts, but often an appointment was made to see each other at another time and place. Moreover, the behaviour in the rice field led regularly to feelings of jalousy and suspicion with husbands and wives who saw the acts or heard about it later.

The ritual ma’dondi could not be considered in itself as a moral misbe haviour which ought to be banned. It had an important significance in the traditional religion. In the rice field the marriage between a man and a woman was sym-bolical depicted, complete with the presenting by the men of betel as a sort of marriage proposal.

In a symbolic way the gods were prayed through the ritual to give their pow-ers of blessing to the rice plants, so that they could yield a rich harvest at the proper time. People were convinced that the coming together of male powers of blessing from the heavens and female powers of blessing from the earth could give fertility.

Just at the time29 when the rice plants were taken out and planted again at an empty place, this symbolic prayer was expressed. The ritual of ma’dondi belonged to the pairan, the seeking of the dewata to gain their blessings. So the prohibition of the government did not only affect the fertility play which was seen as bad moral behaviour, but meant also a violation of the pairan, the relationship with the gods, the dewata.

b The Headhunting Ritual Bulu LondongThe headhunting ritual bulu londong, in which heads were cut off, was per-formed until the beginning of the 20th century. The name bulu londong means ‘feather of the cock’. After the ritual had been forbidden by the Dutch govern-ment, it still went on for a while. In 1979 the last ritual was performed in the village Batarirak,30 near Mamasa. However, the men did not go to other area’s any more to cut off heads, but they stayed nearby in the woods during the night and replaced in the ritual the heads of former times with coconut shells.

The ritual consisted mainly in the departing of the men in the evening and their glorious entry in the village after the raid, followed by the slaughtering of pigs, meals, and dances in the village. Special songs together with various shoutings, accompanied the return of the courageous men in the village. The ritual festivities continued during seven days (see the discussion of this ritual in Buijs 2006:177–98).

29 This activity of tumorak is only necessary if the rice grains are sowed in the field with the broadcasting method. This method is older than the use of seed beds. Buijs 2006:109.

30 This village was well known for the headhunting ritual. Until modern times the men re-member the dances and the words of the special songs of the ritual. See Figure 36 and 37.


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In the traditional religion of the Toraja’s, the aluk, the ritual had the mean-ing of freeing the participating men from their female background of birth and the female influence on them as boys when growing up, sucking the breasts of their mother and being with her most of the time as a child. The headhunt-ing ritual was a male ritual for obtaining manhood,31 besides other meanings (Buijs 2006:180–184).

The most important element in the headhunting ritual was the acquiring of one or more than one head as a trophy in the wilderness,32 the other world of the gods of the earth with their female character. The trophy was then victori-ously brought into the male world of men. A triumphant celebration in the village during seven days confirmed the gained victory.

During the whole ritual, but especially during the time that the men made their raid in other areas, pairan was very important. The saying that was used when the fighters were away, was tokke’ dipamarra’ pairan. This means that the community at home had to hang firmly onto the pairan. Symbolically this ur-gent demand of pairan was depicted with the metaphor of a bamboo that was used to fetch water from a stream outside the village. When the bamboo was carried upwards along the hillside to the village, full of water, it had to be cov-ered carefully. Otherwise the precious water would be spilled, indana tise’bo’, or it would pour out of the bamboo, indana tibollo.

The fathers or grandfathers of the boys and men who departed to hunt heads fulfilled a decisive task in the kitchen of their houses. They were con-vinced that the success of the raid depended on the willingness of the gods to give their support. To ask for that support the fathers or grandfathers took care of the offerings. The expression used for this religious activity at home is ummanda’ pairan, to hold onto the pairan. Those offerings were prayers to the gods for protection and victory.

To the pairan of the headhunting ritual belonged not only the offerings in the kitchens of the houses, but also many prohibitions and instructions, pemali. The powers of blessing from the gods, necessary for the success of the raid, should not be hampered. The pemali of the pairan affected especially the women in the village whose men had left for the headhunting raid. They

31 The female counterpart of the male headhunting ritual is called pa’bisuan. In this ritu-al the priestess toburake officiates. The ritual has the meaning of a thanksgiving ritual initiated by a woman for obtained blessings from the gods. At the same time the ritual functions as a ritual for the coming of age for women. In the night women ran into the woods leaving behind their clothes and were found in the early morning dancing on the branches of the big barana’ tree (Buijs 2006:157–76).

32 The head was always taken from outside the own living area, which means from the ‘wil-derness’. This ‘outside’ could be nearby, a hostile village, or far away, but the ‘outside’ of the wilderness is important (Buijs 2006:191 note 33).

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were not allowed, for instance, to sit on the threshold of their houses. It is the same prohibition women must comply to when their husbands undertake a journey. The background lies in the assumption that other men, passing along the house, could feel attracted to the woman sitting in the opening of the door. They could be tempted to go to the woman for a chat and maybe enter the house.33

Another pairan prohibition for all the people who stayed behind in the vil-lage, was to kick a dog. The idea was that a dog that is kicked runs away with a nasty shriek, which could resemble behaviour and a shriek of defeat.

When the pairan rules and restrictions are violated, people say tae’ umpe-pairanan kalena, which means that he or she offends the conditions for a good relationship with the gods. In doing so the safety of the hunters and the wellbe-ing of the whole community would be endangered.

33 During my journeys in the mountainous area of Mamasa it often happened that I was in-vited to come round for a cup of coffee and a chat. People usually call passers-by with the word singgah, which means ‘stop in for a moment’. It is a common utterance of hospitality.

Figure 36 The head-hunters return early morning after the ‘raid’ in 1979.


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Elements of the headhunting ritual are still performed in dances at the open-ing of important meetings or gatherings. All the ritual parts that could be re-lated to the traditional religion have disappeared from those dances. However, until today the religious background of the ritual is still experienced in villages where the ritual used to be performed.

In 2008 I visited the village Batarirak together with some young people. In this village the men still remember the headhunting dances and some of them took part in the ritual when it was performed for the last time in 1979. The at-tributes of the ritual, bamboo flutes called tambolang and a coconut ‘head’, which served as trophy, are still found under the high roof of a traditional house in Batarirak.

Before visiting the village with the youth, I had asked the head of the village to show a headhunting dance. He agreed. Afterwards, however, some elderly men raised objections against the proposed place of the performance, the cen-tre of the village. These old men were convinced that the gods, the dewata, would not be happy if the dances would be performed without the religious context of the headhunting raid and the slaughtering of animals. Misfortune could be the result of such a trespassing. No problem should be expected if the dances would take place outside the former ritual centre of the village. And so it happened.

Figure 37 During the ritual the head-hunters dance in the village Batarirak was accompanied by the sound of drums, gandang.

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The reaction of these men shows how much the ritual dances of bulu londong were still experienced in the framework of a relationship with the dewata, the pairan of the headhunting ritual.

2 Changes in the Cultivation of RiceIn the Mamasa area, much later than in other regions in Indonesia, the use of seed beds replaced the method of sowing by broadcasting the grains straight into the rice field.

Until the 1970th the broadcasting method was commonly used (Figure 38). However, new quick growing rice varieties were introduced. Those varieties could yield more than one harvest each year. They need a seed bed from which the small plants are planted out in the field.

Today most farmers have chosen for the new varieties so that the rice is growing in different phases the whole year round. Occasionally a farmer culti-vates also a traditional variety because many people like very much the taste of it. Usually those red, black, and glutinous varieties are used only for special occasions, a wedding or to feast a honoured guest.

The change in the cultivation of rice had a big impact on the society. The region experienced in the first place a drastic improvement of the food supply. Hunger, as it was known in former times, is not necessary anymore and for most people the economic improvement is considerable. On the other hand, the change to quick growing varieties has also a negative side. I am not going to dwell on the need of pesticides and artificial fertilizers, or the necessity to combat the rats that are eating the whole year from one rice field to another. The biggest impact of the change in rice cultivation on the society had to do with the pairan performed by the rice priest, toso’bok.

This pairan is known with the expression pairan totiboyongan. It concerns the relationship with the rice god ToTiboyong, and at the same time the rela-tionship with the dewata of the heavens. The rice god stands for the gods of the earth who provide powers of blessing for the fertility of the rice. Her34 help is in the first place needed to provide enough water from the woods, the wilder-ness on the slopes of the mountains. The powers of blessing she gives have to cooperate with the powers of blessing from the heavens so that the rice as the godly crop on earth will be abundant in a good harvest.

In the whole region the farmers used to start with the work of rice cultiva-tion at the same time when the rice priest had given the sign by starting him-self to dig the ground. This meant that everywhere the different phases of the growth of the rice plants occurred at about the same time. The whole social life of the people was for a big part fixed by the different stages of the rice

34 The rice god ToTiboyong is believed to have a female essence (Buijs 2006:112).


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cultivation. The religious life too was governed by the growth of the rice. All the rituals could be distinguished in rituals before, during and after the activities in the rice fields.

Before the work in the rice fields started, the ancestors were asked for their blessing in rituals like bulan liang (Buijs 2006:80–1) and mangngaro (Buijs 2006:82–3). After the thinning out of the rice and the fertility ritual ma’dondi, a period of ritual silence, panda, had to safeguard the prosperous growing of the rice plants, while receiving the blessings from both the heavens and the earth. All the godly parties were supposed to be very busy with the success of the rice harvest, so that in this time of panda no room was given to rituals for child birth, marriage, and coming of age. With a sort of quiet religious tension the communities waited for the harvest, after which the time of life with thanks-giving and happiness could be celebrated again in the rituals of life, rambu tuka’. If necessary, the rituals for the dead, rambu solo’, could be performed during the growing of the rice.35

35 During the growing of the rice the dead can be buried. It is not necessary to wait until the time of the harvest. Only in the case of the funeral of a noble man or woman the time of

Figure 38 The grains were first sprinkled with the blood of a slaughtered pig, in order to request the powers of blessing from the gods, the dewata, before they are sowed in the field. This pairan is performed by the rice priest.

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It is obvious that this religious rhythm broke down when the new rice vari-eties were introduced and accepted by the majority of the farmers.

The stars, watched by the rice priest, do not determine the start of the rice cultivation any more, but the economic thrive to produce as much as possible. Not the religion of the aluk decides about the pattern of life, but the money that can be gained in agriculture, business, and politics. The pairan totiboyongan as indication of the dependency of the dewata has disappeared, together with the rice priest, the toso’bok. With the vanishing of the fixed times for sowing and harvesting of the rice, the structure of the aluk is not working any more.

3 Changes through the Coming of the Christian ChurchIn the beginning of the last century a missionary from the Indische Kerk vis-ited the Mamasa area. He baptized the first people and founded in that way a Christian church in this area (Van der Klis 2006:22). At the same time the government together with the missionaries started with basic education in schools where Christian teachers were appointed.

The old man in Batarirak, Bapak Bongga Barana’, remembers stories from his father about the coming of the Dutch government and not much later the Christian missionaries. According to the father, the people felt more or less forced to obey the new rulers and to adapt to the new religion. This meant also that the process of looseness regarding the adat rules had started. In the opinion of Bapak Bongga Barana’ the relationship between the people and the gods weakened more and more from this moment onwards. The result was that pairan as the centre of the religious awareness and of the relationship between people declined little by little. Instead of looking for unanimity and harmony the people started increasingly to look after themselves in the search of rich-ness and private benefits.

Although the first people who were baptized did not understand much about the new religion and continued to live in their traditional religion, aluk, big changes started to develop in the area. When on 13 October 2013 cel-ebrations took place commemorating the founding of the Christian religion in Mamasa one hundred years earlier, it was mentioned that most people in the Mamasa area now belong to the Christian church, the Gereja Toraja Mamasa.

By this time also the Muslim religion started to spread in the region. After Mamasa became a separate political district, kabupaten, in 2012, the influence

the rituals is always chosen after the harvest of the rice. The main reason is the availability of rice for the many guests, and the prohibition to eat rice during the time of the mortuary rituals.


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of the Islam has become stronger, especially in the political centre, the town Mamasa, where many Muslim men and women got jobs in the administra-tion. Also along the road from the coast leading to Mamasa many Muslim mer-chants settled down.

Under influence of the church and at present also the mosque, together with modern developments such as education, the traditional religion has become a small minority. In this matter the politics of the Indonesian government works against the traditional religion too. The citizenship of the people is confined to the five recognized big religions, Islam, Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, Buddha. Therefore some aluk communities have joined the Hindu religion, although they adhere to their own traditions.

Religious changes in the area made that the rituals of rambu tuka’, which concerned the rituals for life and thanksgiving, disappeared in most places. Only in some enclaves of the aluk those rituals are still performed, although in a much reduced way compared to former times. The rituals for the dead are still found in the Mamasa area, but mostly in a shrinked and often Chris-tianized way. Sometimes big funerals with traditional elements are performed by Christian people to show off status or richness. Although in those ritu-als still many water buffaloes are slaughtered, the old belief in which bless-ings from the spirit of the deceased person were expected, almost or totally disappeared.36

A new religion, the Christian faith, with its own structures and responsi-bilities, had replaced the traditional religion, aluk, in the life of many people. The question arises if maybe, in another way, the pairan of the aluk could be continued as an expression of religious responsibility in the religion and in the communication with each other. Then the core of the aluk would stay, as it is the desire of many elderly people who still live in the traditional religion.

The idea that pairan is of great importance for the family and the society, is still found with them who, until today, try to stay within the traditions and beliefs of the aluk, the traditional religion. In the Introduction I told about Bapak Bongga Barana’ in the village of Batarirak who maintains the pairan in his kitchen, at special stones in the fireplace. He brings offerings for his chil-dren and grandchildren although all of them already joined the Christian church. However, it seems inevitable that the last remainders of the aluk and the pairan will disappear within several years.

36 Probably the belief in profitable results, blessings, that may be expected as ‘reward’ for the considerable financial efforts, still plays a part in the minds of the people who participate in the extreme costly feasts.

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4 Concerns of the Aluk GenerationMany people who still stay in the aluk religion feel concerned about the devel-opments and the religious and social mentality of the people these days. They see and experience everywhere that the essence of pairan with its awareness of responsibility regarding the gods, the family, and the community, is decreasing and sometimes has disappeared totally. They feel worried because they believe that the gods, the dewata, ought to be honoured and approached by means of offerings. When no offerings are brought, people have to be afraid for the conse-quences. All types of punishments must be expected. The sanctions can take the shape of diseases, misfortune, landslides, inundations, poverty, and so on. When it happens, the cause used to be found by means of massalu, the investigation by elderly people about shortcomings in the relationship with the gods. Those wise people, however, are more and more scarce, sighs Bapak Bongga Barana’.

On top of all the dangers that have to be expected, those people who stay in the aluk deplore that so many people live only for their own wellbeing. They feel hardly prepared to help each other if it is not profitable for themselves. The elderly people of the aluk are convinced that a society will break down if the pairan is neglected.

At the present most of the Toraja’s belong to the Christian church. It is under-standable that the sense of the importance of pairan diminishes quickly. How-ever, we have seen in the Introduction that elderly people like Bapak Bongga Barana’ still have a special spot with stones in the fireplace of the kitchen to bring offerings for the children. They continue this practice, although the children do not care about the gods, dewata, of their father and his old religion, his aluk.

The older people feel sad about the lack of belief in their gods, but in the mean time they urge their children not to forget their responsibility for their families and for the community where they live. If the children belong to the Christian church, then their father urges them to slaughter a chicken in their kitchen in addition to the baptizing of their own children in the church. They accept that the offering to the gods, pangkiki’ and paisung, is not acceptable any more for them, but the slaughtering of a chicken shows nevertheless the intention to accept responsibility for their children and in the society. In this way they comply also with the essence of the pangngukusan rituals, the ritu-als for a new-born child to establish its place in the society and especially the relationship with the gods.

The older people give this advice and stimulation in the line of the personal responsibility they feel in the framework of their pairan. They regret that many people are not very much interested any more in the calling of the gods to feel responsible for the wellbeing of their families and the welfare of the society.


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Money, Status and Self-InterestIt is not only in the mortuary rituals where money has pushed aside much of the religious background in the pursue of status through richness. The same is true in other parts of the society. Elderly people complain that many people, not only young persons, are too busy with gaining money and to acquire status, while they have less attention for religious matters. The feeling of responsibil-ity for each other, which was strong in the aluk communities, is almost never found any more.

The elderly people of the aluk generation regret these developments very much. Often they mention a well known saying in the Mamasa area, which urge people to fully cooperate with each other and in that way live happily. The saying goes as follows, ‘To speak with one word gives life, to speak with different words brings death’, mesa kada sipotuo, pantan kada si-pomate. They see many times in present time that people, especially people in the government but also in the society and sometimes also in the church, are busy with their own interests, podo kao. This means that the pairan is missing.

No awe for the Elderly People and No Feeling of Dependence on the Gods

In former times people and especially the youth felt respect for the elderly people who, from one generation to the other, guarded the behaviour in the society according to the adat rules given by the gods. The religion gave com-pactness and togetherness in the community. In all aspects of daily life and especially in the performance of the rituals, people realized that everybody, personally and together, was dependent on the powers of blessing from the gods. The elderly people of the aluk feel concerned that so many people feel no dependency any more on powers from outside their own cultural world. They have the feeling that even some people who belong to the Christian church behave often as if they don’t believe in powers of blessing that may be expected from their god and only know about him inside the walls of their churches.

Too Little Christian PairanAn elderly man, Ambe’ Sampe, told me that he was for a long time consid-ering to follow his children and become a member of the Christian Church, the Gereja Toraja Mamasa. He said that it became more and more difficult to maintain all the requirements of his own religion, the aluk. But until now, he

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Figure 39 Ambe’ Sampe, living in the traditional aluk, has almost no trust in the pairan of Christian people.

could not decide to join the Church, although his own aluk community was diminishing more and more.

Ambe’ Sampe explained his hesitation to join the Church as follows:

All my children have become members of the Christian church. Often they try to convince me to enter also. However, I am not willing to do so. When I hear how people in the church behave, I feel disappointed. Of-ten they have no concern for each other, talk badly about others, and do not help needy people; therefore I rather stay in the aluk community. In our pairan we know our responsibility for each other. The gods ask it from us’.

The complaints of Ambe’ Sampe about the Christian church are often heard. Hypocrisy, corruption, self-enrichment are mentioned as reason why people from the aluk enclaves are not willing to join the church. Often they explain, ‘It is better in our community. Here the people still look after each other’.

Some of the elderly people talked rather heated in our conversations about the lack of pairan that they see in the community and especially in the Church.


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It is difficult for them to understand why leaders in social organisations such as the government and sometimes also in the church don’t realize the task they have to maintain the pairan for the people who belonged to their responsibil-ity. The elderly people realize and also agree that a leader in the society does not have to slaughter a chicken in his or her kitchen as a sacrifice to the gods. In the aluk the prayers were done in that way. But now? Where do you find nowadays that people feel responsible for each other? Do the leaders still real-ize their calling?

It happened that an elderly man became angry, when I asked him about pairan. He said that he feels annoyed about some ministers in the Christian church who try to acquire a position in a political party in order to be elected in the local parliament, instead of caring for their people. Why? He asked me. But the old man knew the answer, ‘Because they are looking for money, maybe in an honest way, but often they participate in the corruption that pervades the whole government’. Many elderly people, who still live in pairan or remember it, reject resolutely an attitude of selfishness in which the feeling of responsi-bility for others is replaced by kinds of egoism.

In conversations with elderly people within the church they often spoke about their high appraisal for pairan. They praised the feeling of responsibility that was common among leaders in the aluk community, which is expressed through offerings for the gods in their kitchen. They wished that the essence of pairan would be more understood in the church. The slaughtering of chickens or pigs would not be necessary anymore, since Christians do not have to reach out to their god by means of offerings. Prayers can be sent straight to the heav-ens without the mediation of the soul of an animal. However, so was stressed by some of the elderly people, the motivation of pairan, which the aluk lead-ers felt in former times, should be the same in the church. Leaders there should give an example of the right behaviour and a good relationship with other people. ‘Alas’, so sighed one of them, ‘many leaders nowadays lack such a drive’.

Danger of Illness and CalamitiesSome of the elderly people I spoke with brought to the fore that they feel very concerned about the welfare of the people in the region. They are convinced that the wellbeing of the people depends on the powers of blessing from the gods. Only in a good relationship with the gods may be expected that prosper-ity, health, and safety will be received. Because they see that everywhere the pairan is lacking, they are afraid of calamities (Figure 40).

In 2014 several people died in floods of rivers, which caused also a lot of damage to houses, gardens, and rice fields. People, who still live in the

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traditional religion of the aluk, are convinced that the lack of pairan had roused the wrath of the gods.

Most of the time elderly people realize that the traditions of the traditional religion cannot be maintained and continued in present time. However, they hope that the people take their present religion seriously and experience their dependency on their god or gods, although they do not slaughter animals any-more. Such an attitude affects the behaviour in daily life in which the feeling of responsibility for each other should belong to the daily practice, especially in the minds and the actions of the leaders in their organisation.

Figure 40 An important road between two regions is badly damaged in a landslide. Elderly people are convinced that lack of pairan has caused this damage.


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chapter 4

Stones and Incantations, Vestiges from the Other World of the Gods

Vestiges from the Other World

We saw (Chapter 3) that not only in the public religion, but also in personal religious practices of individual religion always offerings are necessary. These sacrifices are brought in the kitchen of a house and are by means of small of-ferings, pangkiki’ and pairan, sent to the gods as prayers. In this way people re-quest powers of blessing from the other world, personally and often also in re-lation to responsibilities they experience in the society, because of their work or their tasks in matters of the traditional rulings, the adat, or their obligations as priests or priestesses in the aluk religion.

The individual relationship with the other world of the gods, however, is not restricted to the pairan. Many people are convinced that vestiges of the other word of the gods are found and can be obtained from that side, especially in the shape of power stones and incantations. Through those vestiges powers that originate from the other world of the gods can be put to work, comparable to powers of blessing. Those vestiges are called ‘living’, because they can only stay active, if a living relationship with the gods is maintained. This means that from time to time blood from the crest of a cock must be smeared on the stone. In the case of incantations the smearing of blood is, of course, not possible. Here the living relationship with the gods is expressed by words at the end of each saying.

If an actual living relationship with the gods is not necessary for the efficacy, then can be spoken of ‘dead’ vestiges. This expression does not mean that the vestiges are dead because they could not have any effect. They work and have effect, but the living relationship with the gods does not have to be maintained by offerings. The connection with the other world of the gods lies in the origin of these vestiges. From the origin a force is coupled with the vestiges. They work although no actual relationship with the gods is required through offer-ings. The Toraja name for these ‘dead’ vestiges is tatakan.

Power Stones and Incantations among the Toraja’s

An investigation into the background and meaning of power stones and in-cantations among the Toraja’s, is not easy. The first reason is that 90% of the

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Toraja’s belong to the Christian church. Officially they don’t have anything to do with practices that have received the stamp ‘pagan’, cara orang kafir. People assert that they remember proceedings and traditions from former times and also that older people still use it, but mostly they say, ‘Kami sudah masuk kris-ten’, we have become Christians. They mean that they, for that reason, don’t practice it any more. This makes it difficult to obtain information about the actual use of power stones and incantations. This was the reason that I, per-sonally, seldom succeeded to obtain information in the time that we lived in Mamasa during the years 1978–1983. When people understood that I myself was looking for information through somebody else, they often kept quiet, or they told the questioner that they did not remember anything at all, or that it only happened in the past.

Another difficulty lies in the secret character of the use of stones and espe-cially those incantations that are believed to have an extraordinary power. Peo-ple are afraid that the information could be used abusively. This concerns espe-cially incantations that are used to end the life of somebody. Those incantations are kept in utmost secrecy and are conveyed to the oldest child just before dying.

Furthermore, the stones and incantations may only be transferred to anoth-er person if an offering is made, most often a chicken. Sometimes also clothes that the future possessor has worn himself are demanded (see further on in this Chapter).

In 1979 I participated in a course in the village Balla Peu, not far from Mamasa. In a discussion about some verses in the Bible somebody asked a question about a specific verse, Deuteronomy 18:9–22. In the story related here the people of Israel are warned for magical practices which were common in the land that they were going to enter. During the discussion in the group one of the participants of the meeting remarked that such things used to happen too in the past in the region of Mamasa. Then one of the leaders in the society and in the church, Bapak Depparinding, a man belonging to the nobility, stood up and declared under a deep silence, ‘I know for sure that many of you, even at this moment, carry stones under your clothes, on your skin, with the expec-tation to receive power from them’. Then he sat down. No reaction came. The group was very quiet at that moment. Ten years later we visited Mamasa again. At that time people did not hesitate any more to speak about power stones and incantations.

Very important for me was the help of a teacher, Bapak Nicodemus. I knew him very well from the time that we lived in Mamasa. He himself belonged to the nobility and maintained very good personal relationships with the people in the villages. For me it was also very important that I met again with Bapak

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Depparinding, who appeared to be the uncle of Bapak Nicodemus. He was prepared to explain extensively about his experiences with the use of power stones and incantations (Figure 41).

Bapak Depparinding gave a striking example of his own use of incanta-tions in relation to the death of his mother in 1991 (see further on in this chapter), and about the stones that he possessed himself. He declared that he had given away all of them, although he was still convinced of their ex-traordinary effects. He told me that he himself did not need them anymore because he had joined the Christian church and, moreover, he did not feel threatened any more. This did not mean that he now denied the value and the power of the stones. He had given them to his nephew at the time he moved to Java and had to stay there in a hostile environment. Bapak Dep-parinding was of the opinion that his nephew could use the stones very well for his protection.

Sometimes Bapak Depparinding himself still used indirectly the power of stones and incantations in Mamasa. He told me that, when the Islamic govern-ment from the coastal area caused too much trouble for the Christian Toraja’s, he did not hesitate to involve two of his subordinates, the Mayor (Figure 42) and To Angin, who could exert extraordinary powers through their stones and incantations, their balo’-balo’.

Figure 41 Bapak Depparinding belongs to the nobility.

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Of course, information about power stones and incantations can only be re-ceived in an atmosphere of confidentiality. The help of Bapak Nicodemus has been very important for me. Many conversations had to be conducted in the Toraja language and what’s more, he knew very well the people who could help us with relevant information. We have, among others, spoken with an old man Ne’1 Demmatande. He was known for the extraordinary forces he could call up through special incantations, bangun-bangun.2 It was said that, by means of these incantations, dying people could be prevented to die.

The information I got from a young reverend in the Mamasa church, Bapak Demas Ake, was revealing for me. I already knew him from the time he was still studying at the Theological Academy in Makassar in 1980. His place of birth was the village Rante Palado, where the use and influence of incantations and

1 Ne’ is the term for an old man. We would say ‘grandfather’. It is an abbreviation of the word nenek. Often the common word ambe’ is used for a man and indo’ for a woman.

2 Most of the time the bangun-bangun are incantations. One of my informers, Ambe’ Demma-singa, told me that a special herb that has also the name bangun-bangun can be used. When it is put on the nail of an ill person, death will not come, until the herb is taken away. This is done in secret without an incantation.

Figure 42 The Mayor inspires awe with many people because of his power stones, balo’-balo’. He wears them under his shirt on his bare skin.


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stones was significant. In the circle of his family those means of powers were still used. However, the way he himself talked about stones and incantations and the reality of the world of spirits was remarkable for me.

For Bapak Demas the methods to reach out to the world of spirits in order to obtain special powers did not belong to a kind of fairytale or superstition. He saw them as real possibilities. He told me, however, that he himself did not want to be involved with those kind of activities. Not because its senseless-ness, but because it would make him afraid to meet with spirits in a cave, or on a grave, or under a banana tree, with the aim to obtain from them stones of power, balo’-balo’.

The expression for such a grasping of stones from the other world of the gods is mantara’. I shall come back to this venture further on in this Chapter.

The other world of the spirits from which powers in the form of stones or incantations could be obtained, is believed as a reality, not only for Bapak De-mas, but until the present day for many people in the area of Mamasa. And certainly not only for people within the community that still adheres to the traditional religion, the aluk. The belief in and, to a less degree, also the prac-tice of balo’-balo’ is still wide-spread among older men and women as well as among young people who feel thrilled to experiment with it.

In the next two parts of this Chapter I shall discuss vestiges from the other world of the gods. In Part 3 I explain the vestiges as a connection with the other world of the gods, and thus as part of religion. The three parts are as follows:

1. Dead vestiges from the tangent places of this world and the world of the godsa. Vestiges from the mythical primordial timeb. Vestiges from the tangent place of the realm of the deadc. Vestiges from the tangent place of the world of the gods in the

kitchen2. Living vestiges from the other world of the gods

a. Given vestiges from the other world of the godsb. Grasped vestiges from the other world of the godsc. Incantations, handed down from the other world of the godsd. Incantations with power over life and deathe. Incantations that make invisible

3. Connection with the other world of the godsa. Conditions for the incantationsb. Conditions for the stonesc. Source of the power of stones and incantations

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1 Dead Vestiges from the Tangent Places of this World and the World of the Gods

The ‘dead’ vestiges originate from the points of contact, the tangent places of the other world of the gods with the environment of men. The most important tangent place in this case goes back to the mythical primordial time when the heavens were still connected with the earth, and when sons of the gods, the tomanurun, came to the earth. Another tangent place is found at graveyards where the realm of the dead touches the world of the living. In a certain sense also the kitchen where the fire burns in the fireplace between the three stones of the lalikan can be called a tangent place as well. This is the place where the gods are believed to be very near with the people and can be approached daily by the family who lives in the house, or even individually (Chapter 3 Pairan). Vestiges from all these tangent places originate from the gods and have a spe-cial inherent force that can be used without offerings. These vestiges, tatakan, got their power from their origin and are not handled, like the ‘living’ vestiges, with secrecy.

a Vestiges from the Mythical Primordial TimeIt is striking that people speak about ‘remainders from the former world’, tatakan, when they mention acts with certain effects. Ne’ Ru’da explains that many tatakan originate from the former world, lino yolo, and were used by the ancient people. He points to the primordial time when sons of the gods, tomanurun, descended to the earth. They came from the heavens with the adat rules and incantations, but also with means to exert special powers, tatakan.

The tatakan are in the first place certain symbolic acts that have special ef-fects. For instance the turning of the stair of a house upside down, or the turn-ing over of the sleeping mat of an ill person, or the emptying of the betel bag of somebody over the fireplace in the kitchen. All these acts have the purpose to cause the death of somebody. Apart from symbolic acts also plants and herbs, or small parts of the liver of an animal, can be used as tatakan.

Ne’ Ru’da explicates that the use of tatakan goes without prayers or incanta-tions. Some of these means can be eaten like rice. Plants must sometimes be squeezed above somebody’s head so that the sap drips on it, or a part of a plant must be bitten off.

Sometimes maggots from a rice field must be eaten to end someone’s life. Another time earth from under the stairs of the house where an ill person lies is taken and then thrown over the roof of the house in the direction of the east, the direction of the rising sun, of life. These acts of tatakan have the purpose to


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effect a desired result, either the death of the patient, or his or her healing. No prayers or incantations are used.

A rather spectacular use of tatakan is to make a water buffalo to stand up-right and even walk although it was killed already. An old man, Pua’ Darang, was well known for his ability to let walk a water buffalo that was killed the day before. He accomplished this feat by waving with a handkerchief. People say, however, that he administered certain herbs, tatakan, before the animal was killed.

b Vestiges from the Tangent Place of the Realm of the DeadFrom stories that are narrated about people who got the opportunity to visit de-ceased loved ones at the other side of the death river Makkatibe it appears that the realm of the death, called Pollondong, lies next to the world of the living.

A story is told, for instance, about a young man who is allowed by the gods to visit his dead fiancée in the realm of the dead. When he arrives there, the woman, indo’ Robo, who is in charge of all the spirits of the dead, gives him the instruction not to shed tears. However, when he meets his sweetheart and they embrace each other, the inevitable happens. He weeps passionately. At the same moment he awakes on the roof of the small house which covers the grave of his loved one.

Figure 43 The burial house tedong-tedong.

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In the region of Balla Kalua, near the village Buntu Balla, is situated a very old burial house (Figure 43, 44) with the name tedong-tedong, which means ‘water buffaloes’ (Kruyt 1923–24:166 writes about this burial place). According to the tradition, a child was buried at this site before it functioned as a burial place for the community. The child died because it did not want to eat. It asked continu-ally for food that was not known to anybody. After the body of the child was buried at the site rice plants started to grow out of its dead body. This special kind of rice is called pare liang, which means ‘rice from the grave’.

The site tedong-tedong has become a burial house for lots of dead bodies. In large wooden boxes in the shape of water buffaloes, hundreds of skeletons are kept.

An action that is related with the grave as tangent place between the world of the dead and the world of the living goes as follows. When somebody is very ill and death lingers to come, people go to the burial house tedong-tedong to fetch a handful of earth. After returning to the house of the ill person the earth is thrown over the roof. By means of this act death is brought closer.

Bapak Nicodemus told us about a similar practice. If the body of an ill person already starts to decay, but death does not want to come, people go to a graveyard where a body is buried in a grave mound under a small burial

Figure 44 The wooden boxes in the shape of water buffaloes are filled with bones and skulls in the burial house tedong-tedong.


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house.3 Three handfuls of earth are taken from the mound, and, back at the house of the ill person, the earth is thrown over the roof at the house where the dying person lies with his head in the direction of the west.4 It is told that within half an hour the ill person dies.

According to Bapak Nicodemus, such a grave mound under a small burial house can also be called tedong-tedong, similar to the burial house in Buntu-Balla. He explains that the throwing of earth, taken from a grave mound, holds the message that the ill person also has to go that way.

c Vestiges from the Tangent Place of the World of the Gods in the Kitchen

Another place where the other world, but this time the world of the gods, touches this world is the fireplace in the kitchen of a house. There lie the three stones, the lalikan, on top of which the food is prepared in a cooking pot. Be-tween the three stones the fire burns and smoulders.

In the Toraja religion, aluk, always three gods are mentioned. They are as-sociated with the stones in the fireplace in the kitchen (Figure 45). The three gods are the creator ToMetampa, the companion or guide ToMeolaan, and the caretaker for property and welfare ToMemana’. The kitchen in the Toraja house functions as the religious centre of the family (Chapter 3). In the kitchen not only the daily life is nourished, but this is also the place where the offerings for the gods are brought to ask for blessings and to express the dependency on the gods. The characteristic expression for this private religion is pairan.

On the stones in the fireplace a chicken is slaughtered when somebody is ill, hoping that healing will be given. A chicken is also slaughtered here for a new-born child during the small ritual of dipatama dapo’, the bringing into the kitchen. Often offerings are brought in this place to request blessings from the gods. This happens here, according to Bapak Depparinding, because the fire that is burning between the three stones symbolizes the gods. This con-centration on the fireplace in the kitchen has lead to the belief that the ashes between the three stones have a special power.

Ne’ Pampangkaraeng tells that in former times people never undertook a long journey without making first a offering at the fireplace in their kitchen as a prayer for a save journey and success in the undertakings that had to be

3 See for an explanation about the burial places as they are found in the Toraja area Kruyt 1923-24:166-169. If the Toraja’s bury a dead person in the earth, a burial house is put over the grave.

4 See for the meaning of the directions of the wind Kruyt 1923–24:160; Nooy-Palm 1979:109, 131; Buijs (2006:60–2). The west is the direction of death. Funeral rituals are performed at the west side of the house.

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completed. After the slaughtering of a chicken they took some of the ashes from between the stones and they put them in a small bamboo container.

When people planned to stay somewhere for a rather long time, they took also some of the ashes from the fireplace at home with them, in a small bam-boo container. Their purpose was to put the ashes in the fireplace of the house where they would stay. If they stayed with people of the same background, they put the ashes openly between the stones in the fireplace. In this way they consecrated this place as a tangent place of the other world of the gods, who could give their powers of blessing also in this place far away from their own home. If they had to stay in a strange environment, the ashes brought from home were secretly thrown in the fireplace of the house where they stayed. Help and protection was expected in this way, also in an area that often was experienced as hostile.

2 Living Vestiges from the Other World of the Gods

a Given Vestiges from the Other World of the Gods Batu GaunAmbe’ Pampangkaraeng (Figure 46), also named after his eldest daughter, Ambe’ Arru, told that one morning he was walking in a fog. Suddenly the mist disappeared and there he saw a special stone on the path. He felt exit-ed because he was convinced that he had received a gift from the heavens.

Figure 45 The lalikan with a cooking pan. The two stones in the front part of the fireplace are used for pairan offerings.


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According to him the hanging down of the thick mist was like a touching of the heavens with the earth. He understood right away that the stone, which he had never seen before at this place, was put there for him by the gods. A special use had to be linked with it.

Ambe’ Arru did not know right away what to do with the stone, but the vil-lage head recognized it as a stone with power. He knew also the name, batu gaun, stone of the morning haze. He even knew the incantation that belonged to the stone and was willing to share it with Ambe’ Arru.

In my conversation with Ambe’ Arru, together with Ambe’ Sandagandang, he was willing to pronounce the incantation so that we could write it down. It appeared that the words have to do with the thickness of the fog, which in the incantation is related to the speaking, the hearing, the voice. From the rest of the story of Ambe’ Arru I understood that the use of the stone is indeed related to speaking and hearing. The incantation goes as follows:

I let the mist come kupadai’ urriambunI make the white cloud descend kupaturun salibu’naIt gives shadow for the lamp behind unaungngi ballo uiring

Figure 46Ne’ Pampangkaraeng, also called Ambe’ Arru after his first child, lived until his death in the traditional religion, the aluk. Here he plays the tuli bondesan, a traditional musical instrument in Mamasa used to bring ill women in trance as a healing procedure.

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In front of me nobody is speaking ta ma’kada ri yolokuBehind me I hear nothing ta ma’kada ri uindingku,My ears are wrapped up naputu’ daungku,With a prayer directed to the gods baraka do’a bisa, sande di alla

ta’ alla.To be repeated three times silently without breathing.

According to Ambe’ Arru, the last words of the incantation indicate that it is a prayer to obtain blessings from the gods, dewata, who make the stone effec-tive.5 Ambe’ Arru uses the batu gaun for a special purpose. In the incantation is said that the voices are silenced in the mist. This means that the stone can be used as a medicine against evil voices that are blown by the wind to cause harm.

When Ambe’ Arru has the feeling that people are hostile towards him so that they blow poison, doti,6 to him by way of incantations with malicious in-tent, then he uses the stone as follows. He puts it in a bowl, adds some water and stirs the water with a sharp Toraja knife (Figure 47),7 while uttering the in-cantation without breathing three times in his heart. Often he is also required to blow over the water at the same time. The water that is treated in this way becomes a medicine called pamole. It takes away the bad influences of the doti.

Ambe Arru tells us that he has felt himself saved many times by the medicine produced by the stone from the malicious effects of harmful incantations. Then he shows the stone after taking him out of a safe place. We see that the stone is carefully kept in a cloth. Ambe’ Arru looks at it and handles it with deference.

My companion, Ambe’ Sandagandang, is very interested in the stone and its workings. He tells that some time ago he was very ill. He got medicines from the doctor and also the treatment of an injection, suntik, but nothing was of help. Then he visited a traditional doctor, a dukun, who healed him in the same way as Ambe’ Arru just showed. He used a stone in water, stirred it with a knife while blowing over the water.

Sometimes the blowing of poison with the wind has no result. Bapak Piet Upo told me that people who are very angry with somebody else can also use an incantation, before slaughtering a chicken. The words are given to the

5 Probably the expression alla ta’ alla has been derived from Islamic prayers used by the Man-dar people in the coastal region bordering the Mamasa area. Information from Bapak Arru-langi, teacher at the Theological Academy in Mamasa.

6 The Toraja word doti has also a totally different meaning, spotted water buffalo. The poison is usually called doti pepasan.

7 The knife that is used in this procedure must be a small sharp Toraja knife, a piso, with the handle perpendicular to the blade.


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soul of the animal in order to deliver them at the highest god ToMetampa. The words are as follows:

Kupelau sunga’na indeaka napepa’di penawana’aka pelau langngan ToMetampa.

The translation is:

I ask the spirit of himbecause my heart is very angryI ask this from the Creator above.

Laso Kila’According to Ambe’ Arru, a stone can also be found in a fissure struck by a lightning in a tree.8 Like mist also a lightning means the narrowing of the gap between the heavens and the earth. If the heavens touch the earth by means of a lightning, a vestige from the heavens can be expected. Especially

8 Kruyt (1906:157; 1922:679) writes about ‘bezoar’ stones, namely stones originating from a pre-historic time and made like arrowheads. See also Wilken 1912:152–8. The stones are also called ‘thunderstones’ because people assumed that the lightning had brought them to the earth.

Figure 47 Obtaining medicine by stirring water and power stones with a Toraja knife. The sharp edge of the knife must point to the objective.

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the barana’-tree9 is of importance here. Together with the banana tree with red bananas, this tree is supposed to have a strong spirit. A stone obtained by the coming together of a barana’-tree and a lightning is called laso kila’,10 which means penis of the lightning. Just like the batu gaun this stone is used as medicine by putting it in water and stirring the water with a sharp Toraja knife.

Batu Tedong and Batu PareThe two stones, batu tedong and batu pare are important for the wellbeing of water buffaloes, tedong, and rice, pare.11 They are seldom found. If somebody discovers such a stone, it is laid inside the rice barn, alang. People believe that the stone exerts its power, so that the rice grows abundantly and healthy. In the case of the batu tedong people expect that water buffaloes will not become ill and give birth to healthy calves.

The batu pare is found, sticking to a rice stalk, in the rice field and the batu tedong is found at the neck of a water buffalo. People believe that they were brought there by the gods. The finder experiences it as a gift from the heavens. He is happy with it because he sees it as a token of good graces of the rice god, ToTiboyong, and the other gods, dewata. They are expected to bless the new owner of the stones.

Batu Pontolongga’Ambe’ Demmakan from the village Bulo told me that he has a kind of bracelet with the name pontolongga’. This bracelet has stayed in his family for a very long time. It has an extraordinary power originating from the other world of the gods. Therefore it has to receive nourishment in the form of blood from the crest of a cock, three times a year. If the blood is not given, the bracelet causes a lot of trouble. It frays the cloth in which it is kept and it damages the clothes of its owner.

Strength and Courage through Power StonesBesides the use of the stones, mentioned in this paragraph, as the basis for a medicine, or as a guarantee of fertility or success, people who possess them,

9 The name of the barana’ tree is in the Indonesian language beringin. It is a big ficus tree, the ficus benjamina, most of the time planted at the outskirts of the villages. This tree has an important function in the ritual pa’bisuan, in which women climb the tree in the night and dance on its trees. See Buijs (2006:157–76).

10 Ne’ Piet Upo possessed also such a stone. He called it a batu la ulung.11 Kruyt (1906:203) writes that the use of stones often accords with the place or position

where it was found. This is certainly true for these stones.


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also derive from them strength and courage in their daily life. This benefit of power stones is found more strongly with stones grasped from the other world of the gods, as we shall see in the next paragraph.

People who have put trust in the power of a stone or stones obtain tranquillity and composure from them. Bapak Depparinding told me that sometimes the trust in a stone goes together with a prayer to the gods, who are supposed to work at the background to give power to the stone. I come back to this relationship with the gods in Part 3 of this Chapter. Here I present some examples of prayers that go together with the expectation of power to be received from a stone.

The following prayer is uttered in the hope that strength will be given to the person who possesses the stone and feels uncertain to attend a public meeting. The prayer does not work alone. It is uttered three times and silently (see Part 3 of this Chapter about this proceeding), in order to render power to a stone that the person who prays carries with him.

Be quiet all of you rapa’ko rapa’ko tauBe quiet at your place rapa’ko di angngenammuAs if planted in one place dipantana-tanaam muThe working of my power stone dengan ka susi embe’kuSuch as my medicine swallows sipoamma’ pakulingku susina’A mouse that has been hanged up balao ditoke’Such as gold that sparkle bulawan kapidi-pidiI bring the victory kubawa pabeta-betaWith a prayer directed to the gods baraka do’a bisa, sande di alla ta’

alla.To be repeated three times silently without breathing.

Another much used working of a power stone is the invulnerability and thus protection which the stone offers to its owner. Sometimes the user of a stone tries to strengthen its working by means of a prayer to the gods. The following prayer supports the effectiveness of a stone, to give protection against attacks with a spear.

Slanting iron (weapon) behind tumbila bassi boko koImpervious the stone before me ka’ba’ (=kaban) batu

tingngayokuI shall not be hit moranna’ mesallana’I hit you if you aim your spear kurauko kubassakoYou go down the valley lao rokkoko lembangWhile rolling down like a paku plant tikolik-kolik pakuRolled up like a centipede muting kongkong kalonai

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With a prayer directed to the gods baraka do’a bisa, sande di alla ta’ alla.

To be repeated three times silently without breathing.

b Grasped Vestiges from the Other World of the Gods Grasped Stones, Mantara’The world of gods and spirits often arouses a certain fear. People believe that spirits wander about in the dark of the night. The pottiana’ spirit12 of women who died while giving birth to a child could be active and the spirit of a living person could leave the body and cause harm with others as a poppok.13 Espe-cially graves and burial houses are known for the spirits of the dead that could haunt the place.

Only a few people know some sort of courage with respect to the nearness of spirits. Some of them want to show their courage by daring to purposely seek contact with the other world of spirits and gods, without shunning away from it. The person who has the courage for such an undertaking and endures it can expect some sort of remaining result from this venture. People tell that the other world of gods and spirits is prepared to give some sort of vestige from their world to the courageous person who endeavours to contact them and did not dash off under the severe trials. This activity which has to take place in the night in a cave on a mountain, or in front of a grave, or a banana tree, is called pantarasan and the verb is mantara’.

In an interview with an elderly man, Ambe’ Demmasinga, in the village Bulo, he explained that he is convinced that four kinds of spirits can give pow-er stones. Their names are sameragading, salibuding, walli and jin. Especially the walli spirits seldom give stones, because they are nearest to the highest god, alla ta’ alla.14

The trials that must establish the courage of the person are many. Accord-ing to the stories of men who subjected themselves to the ordeal, it starts with mosquitoes, then birds like herons and black crows. After that dwarfs appear,

12 The Mamasa name is tabelutto’. Kruyt (1923–24:132) writes about the potitana’ spirit. This spirit of a woman who died in childbirth is dreaded by people, especially by men, because one fears that it seeks revenge. See also Koubi 1982:310, note 3; Buijs 2006:23.

13 The spirit of some people leaves the body in the night in search for blood. Many people are afraid for these poppok. See Kruyt 1906:109–17; 1923–24:131.

14 From other informants I did not receive information about these names. I think that it is clear that also these spirits are viewed to belong to the other world of the gods. I do not differentiate in this study between gods, spirits and demons. I only use the indication ‘gods’, dewata, for all of them.


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tobanni. Also snakes and bigger animals can come to pester the person who wishes to receive gifts from the other world.

During these trials no physical harm or pain is inflicted. Only the courage and perseverance is tested. Who persists under the tests can expect a keepsake as a gift from the other world, and he will be able to derive certain powers from it. Usually these special gifts are stones with a power that originates from the other world. The stones that are grasped in pantarasan are believed to have much more power than stones that were received in another way, like the batu gaun found after mist had touched the earth. Mostly their power can be used without the need to utter an incantation. According to the informants, it may happen in pantarasan that an incantation is given instead of a stone. Ne’ Dem-matande knows about it from his own experience.

It is important that stones obtained through mantara’ are maintained in a special way. From time to time a chicken must be slaughtered and some of the blood smeared on the stone. In this way it stays ‘alive’. This is called mangrara. See the paragraph about conditions for the stones, Part 3 of this Chapter.

Batu PuntiThe most common are the stories about a stone grasped in the night at a tree of red bananas. The name of the stone is batu punti, sometimes also called sipa’gan. At the moment that the stud, which will grow into a bunch of ba-nanas, appears, it has to be tied up to restrict the growth. Then the stone seeker has to go to the tree in the following night and sit naked under it. He must be prepared to endure the tribulations that will happen.

Ne’ Upo told me that he once tried it. He brought an egg as an offering. How-ever, he became very afraid in the night when mosquitoes, black birds, and big butterflies came to harass him. He gave up and fled away.

According to the stories Bapak Demas had heard from men who said to tell them from their own experience, it is a big one-eyed giant who appears even-tually. He is the owner or the care taker of the tree. He comes to see what is happening with the fruit. He has brought a medicine, which he administers on the fruit. When he is tired holding up his hand, the man under the tree must gather all his courage and snatch the medicine from the giant’s hand. If he succeeds and is able to run away without losing the catch, he owns a batu punti that has extraordinary power.

About the use of this banana stone many stories are told, mainly about men who were saved from threatening danger. A gun aimed at the holder of a stone does not go off. A bullet fired from a gun falls down in front of the feet of the man who hides the stone against his skin. In short, the owner of a batu punti has got an extraordinary protection against weaponry.

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Most often no incantation is used to make the stone powerful against weap-onry. From an elderly man in the village Tandi Allo I heard an incantation to take away the threat of a fired bullet. The incantation can be used without or together with the stone. It must be uttered once when the fighter leaves his house. Thereafter two times when he arrives at the place of the fighting. The utterance of the incantation must be done in the heart, silently. See for the meaning of this instruction Part 3 of this Chapter. The words are as follows:

Maro’ maro’ dio maiiko katambi maleasereka lakosae rokko langnganbaraka doa bisa sande’ di alla ta’ alla

The translation is:

You, the bullet, are stupid coming from thereYou are like a red guava fruitGo aside that wayGo down and upwardsMay god hear the prayer

Bapak Demas reported still another efficacy of the batu punti. He has heard that the stone is also used if a woman suffers under a difficult delivery. Af-ter putting the stone in water and stirring the water with a sharp knife, the woman has to drink it. Then the delivery will take place without further hindrance.

The stone keeps always its power, also when the owner gives it to one of his children when he is going to die. The only condition is the streaking with blood of a chicken from time to time, mangrara. People say that the stone needs its food. If it never happens, the stone will lose its power and ‘die’. The gods could be angry, if their gift is treated like that and they will punish the careless person.

Bassi GallingA very strong stone is called bassi galling. It is given to a person who has the courage and the strength to endure the trials of pantarasan at a grave or in a cave. The seeker of a stone goes at the beginning of the night to the grave or the cave with an offering like an egg or a chicken. It is laid down in front of the grave or at the entrance of the cave, divided in four parts. Then the person


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must wait patiently. At last the testing starts by means of insects and animals. There is no danger to be injured. The only requirement is to show courage and endurance. At last the stone, bassi galling, is given by a frightening crea-ture. It gives invulnerability for sharp iron weapons. The owner will get a skin like stone if he would be threatened by somebody with a sharp weapon in future.

In the Introduction I told about an old man who stabbed himself with a knife that did not pierce his skin. According to the onlookers, he kept one or more than one bassi galling hidden in a cloth against his skin.

Together with the bassi galling certain incantations are used. I cite some of them here.

For invulnerability

flat stone right before me batu papan di olokuflat stone with me batu papan kusaliku’flat stone behind me batu papan diboko’ku’bassi galling aside bassi gallingri sa’debassi galling to the right of me bassi gallingri kanankubassi galling to the left of me bassi gallingri kairingkuMay the prayer be agreeable baraka doa bisafor the godsThree times silently without breathing.

The stone, together with the prayer must make the skin of the owner hard as stone, so that a knife cannot pierce it. The prayer goes as follows:

Skin hair full of hope Bulu marannu,The skin has expectation lollo marannu,The inside of the body hopes too issi marannu,I keep the blood inside my bones rara kupatama, buku mendadiThat become a chain of iron rings bayu ranteThis prayer goes to the gods kumpaya, kum

(=baraka doa bisa Alla ta’ alla) Three times silently without breathing.

For defence / invulnarability suleppa’ / kaban

I whet the iron sharp solli kusia’sia’pa bassi

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I make it sharp in the middle kupealla’pa mataranI eat his eye pada kuande matannaI turn his tongue upside down ku girik pokka lilananLet the lightning fight moi silallena kila’Let the thunder roll sisulangdu’na palepa’I walk along la ku ola sia akaI walk in the middle through la ku pa’tangngai siaThe iron glides behind me tumbila’ bassi boko’kuMy face is hard as stone kaban batu tingngayokuMay the gods give blessings baraka’ bisa = baraka’ sengo pabisaThree times silently without breathing.

It is noteworthy that the gods are always mentioned at the end of the incan-tation. They are the source of the incantation. Only through their help, the stones can have effect.

Important is the mentioning of the right characteristics. In the first incan-tation the stone functions as a protection at all sides, so that the owner, so to say, can hide in the middle of the stone. In the second incantation the skin is illustrated as if it is hard as stone and the bones strong as iron. In the third incantation the owner of the stone sees himself stronger than iron knives, as if he uses them to harm his enemies. The same expressions ‘eat the eye’ and ‘turn the tongue’, are also used for somebody who is dying under immense suffering. The owner of the stone sees himself as if he has power over the iron of weap-onry. That is why he is even not afraid of lightning and thunder. They brush off from him just like the iron weapons.

Batu LilaThe stone batu lila must be reckoned among the stones, balo’-balo’, acquired by mantara’. However, the manner of obtaining this stone is horrible. It is told as true by Bapak Demas who got the information from old people in the village where he was born.

The story goes as follows. A baby dies just after the mother gave birth to him. The same day the body of the baby is buried by the family under the rice barn. In the following night a person who wants to get a power stone goes to the barn and digs up the body. In the mean time he must undergo the same tests as the men during mantara’ at a cave or under a banana tree. If he does not give up his effort and does not run away, his undertaking could be rewarded with a strong stone. To obtain such a stone he has to take the body of the baby in his arms and rock it until it revives. The baby starts crying and sticks out the


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tongue. At that moment the man has to bite it off. The tongue, lila, changes in a stone, which keeps the shape of a small tongue. It is believed that a bundling of life force and vitality is stored in the tongue. It was available for this dead human being who was born only a short time ago.15

Rante BaiThe rante bai is a stone that was taken from a wild pig. Also this stone can only be obtained through audacity. This time the trials do not come straight from the other world of gods and spirits, but through endangering one’s own life. A person who has the courage to approach very near the border of death and thus the other world of the gods could be rewarded with this stone. The shape of this object is in fact not a stone, but a small chain of rings with an opening in the middle. The chain can only be conquered on a wild pig by means of extreme audacity.

If it appears that a wild pig in the woods is so fierce that it cannot be fa-tigued by hunting dogs that chase after it, then this wild pig must have a rante bai under the skin of its neck.16 It is believed that the animal got this power chain when it ate honey from a honeycomb of bees in the forest. Then the chain must have been swallowed, together with the honey, after which it got stuck in his throat.

According to the thoughts of the people, this stone has to do with the gods of the forest, the wilderness. They use the honey as their food. The stone is therefore an attribute originating from the gods of the wilderness. A wild pig that has got such a ring can only be defeated in one way. A man must go to it with audacity, grasp it and let himself be dragged along. Through the con-tact with the wild pig the power of the chain comes also in the hunter, who therefore shares the invulnerability that goes along with the stone. This makes him strong and daring to grasp the chain from the throat of the pig. However, if he loses his grip on the animal and cannot hold it anymore, he will certain-ly be killed. Only if he holds it tight, he is able to kill the pig and obtain the rante bai, together with all its power. It makes him invulnerable for all the threatenings of weapons.

15 Leertouwer (1977:66) writes that spirits of dead children who don’t have yet teeth receive a special veneration. Their bodies have great value for certain people. They distil magical medicine from it. It is the unused vitality that is sought after.

16 Kruyt (1906:202) tells about information he had received about a wild pig or water buf-falo. If the animal attacks somebody, people believe that it must carry a stone with power.

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c Incantations, Handed Down from the Other World of the Gods Origin of the IncantationsSometimes people tell that some incantations which have a certain effect are handed down together with stones from the other world of the gods during the nightly endeavour to obtain gifts from the gods, mantara’. Most of the time, however, people say that the origin of the incantations is difficult to find out, except that they have been handed down of old.

The Toraja’s trace back their origins to the sons of the gods, tomanurun, who came down from the heavens in ancient times. At the funeral of a noble person often a genealogy is cited that goes back to the tomanurun. The secret incan-tations are supposed to go back as well to the first ancestors who descended from the heavens. In this way a direct connection can be traced in the belief of the people between the power that is found in incantations and their origin in the heavens. The incantations are understood by the people as vestiges from primordial times.

Incantations Grasped by Way of Mantara’Ne’ Demmatande tells a story in which incantations are grasped by means of mantara’, although usually stones are obtained in that way. The story goes as follows:

My grandfather told me that he experienced a very special event. Once he stood close by a big stone near the village NeAmba. The stone opened and he walked in. After the stone closed again, he stayed inside for three days and nights. Then the stone opened again. He had received everything that the gods had destined for him, namely incantations of bangun-bangun (see further in this Chapter) and also the sign of cracking his fingers to know if an incantation was not used in vain, but has caused the desired effect.

Because this was a case of mantara’, according to Ne’ Demmatande, trials pre-ceded the opening of the stone.17 The stone has in this story the function of a dwelling place for gods and is comparable with a cave that is guarded by guards of the gods.

Secrecy of the IncantationsAlways the secrecy of the incantations is thought to be of great importance. They may not be spoken in an audible way in public. When they are used, they

17 Kruyt (1922:714) tells the story of Rampen Manik, a girl who entered also in a stone that miraculously opened itself for her.


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are uttered inaudible, in the heart, dalam hati (see also Mauss 1950:50). People are afraid that others remember the words, which have power in themselves, and are going to experiment with the incantation.

The hesitation to cite an incantation in an audible way appeared in an in-terview that I had with Ne’ Ru’da. He is the grandfather of the man who as-sisted me very much to find information, Bapak Nicodemus, and who was also present during the interview. Because of the family relation with Bapak Nico-demus, Ne’ Ru’da trusted our promise that the words would not be misused. However, it was not easy to convince him, especially because we wanted to use a tape recorder so that we would be able to write down the words afterwards. Especially the incantations that could end a life had to be handled in a delicate way because misuse of them could be very dangerous, said Ne’ Ru’da.

Transfer of IncantationsUsually the incantations are transferred by the owner to one of his children when he knows that he is going to die. This transfer happens in secrecy.

Sometimes the transfer of incantations takes place outside the family. Ne’ Ru’da told Bapak Nicodemus and me in which way he became the owner of some special incantations, bangun-bangun, that have the power to make a killed animal stand up again and walk. His story goes as follows:

I possessed a dog with special colours,18 brown with yellow stripes. A man, Pua’ Da’rang, who was well known for the powerful incantations that he knew, liked the dog very much. He was prepared to teach me some incantations in exchange for the dog. I was prepared to hand over the dog, because the incantations can seldom be acquired without great efforts. I stayed several days with Pua’ Da’rang to memorize the incanta-tions. Afterwards I have used those powerful words successfully. It shows that the effect of the words is not linked to a person, but goes together with the incantation, provided the words are spoken in the right way, to-gether with the prayer at the end.

When incantations are transferred to somebody outside the own family, al-ways a special gift must be exchanged. In the case of Ne’ Ru’da it was a dog. However, usually a chicken must be slaughtered as an offering for the gods who actually own the incantations and have to give power to them. Sometimes also a set of Toraja clothes is required. Those clothes must have been worn by the

18 Kruyt (1923–24) tells about dog with special colours. See also Nooy-Palm 1979:214.

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person who will receive the incantations.19 The expression for this exchange is ma’losokan.

The Power of the Incantations Originates from the Gods The person who recites an incantation three times inaudible by heart with-out breathing can count on its working power. It is not allowed to recite them audible. The fear for misuse of the incantations points to the conviction that the words have power in themselves.20 Often they are used without additional actions.21

Every incantation ends with a sort of prayer with an appeal to the gods, the dewata, to give power to the words. From this prayer it becomes obvious that the power of the incantation is not only dependent on the words and the symbols that are expressed in the words, but especially on the benevolence of the gods of the other world. People who are familiar with incantations always emphasize that the words are not working automatically.22 The source of the power lies in the gods who are mentioned at the end of each incantation. They are the subjects who are acting.

Probably we cannot assume that the prayer is added to the incantation be-cause of Christian influence. An elderly man, Ambe’ Arru, who still lives in the traditional religion, aluk, says that he is certain about the original source of the prayer. He knows the incantations from the time that he was a youth. At that time the Christian influence was still minimal. The old man stresses that the power of the world of the dewata works through the incantations. That is why a prayer concludes each incantation. It is also the reason why a chicken has to be slaughtered when a incantation is transferred to somebody else.

Vehicle of the IncantationsThe incantations are not working in a mechanical way, but spiritually and in-visible. The words are recited in the heart. The wind, which has a clear effect

19 See for an interpretation of this requirement Part 3 of this Chapter.20 Skorupski 1976:145; Tambiah 1990:74. The origin of an incantation is important. The incan-

tations are granted vestiges from the other world of the gods. See also Malinowski 1948:81. They have a primordial origin.

21 Sometimes, especially with incantations that have to do with preventing death to come, certain symbolic acts are performed.

22 According to Malinowski (1948:73–4), exorcisms are the vehicles of the power. This is also the opinion of Leach (1976:29). He states that exorcisms function as magic words. Schefold (1988:38) argues that incantations together with gestures and offerings activate the instrumentality of the symbols. It must be considered also that exorcisms are expe-rienced by the Toraja’s as prayers, which means that gods are supposed to give power to them.


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despite its invisibility, is often associated with the working of incantations. Of-ten it is mentioned as a sort of vehicle for the incantations which are always uttered in the heart with the purpose to have effect in another place.

Ne’ Demmatande states that his incantations cannot work when it rains. He explains that in Mamasa the wind is not blowing when it rains. If it does not rain, the words of the incantation are taken by the wind and brought to their destination. In this proceeding it is important that the name of the addressee is known by the sender. He also has to know the shape of the house where the words must arrive. He must visualize the person who is going to receive the ef-fect of the words, and his place, before he sends the incantation.

The name of a person is strongly related to the person himself. If the re-ceiver of an incantation is ill and is supposed to be healed by the incanta-tion, then the place where he or she lies in the house must be known also. Ne’ Demmatande emphasizes that if the name and the shape of the house are unknown, then the incantation cannot reach its goal and will have no effect.

d Incantations with Power over Life and DeathEvery Toraja knows about the mysterious incantations that have power over life and death, the bangun-bangun. Only a few people are familiar with the words of these incantations. I was especially impressed by the fact that no-body thinks that the incantations are fake, although many people have the opinion that these incantations belong to bygone ages before the coming of the Christian faith. However, from nearby I have experienced that people, also Christians, take an ambivalent position. On the one hand they distance them-selves from the use of these incantations and on the other hand they still belief in the working of them.

A man in a leading position in the church, Bapak Depparinding, confided to me that had made use of the bangun-bangun recently. He had contacted Ne’ Demmatande to activate the incantations so that his mother would live some weeks longer, although she was dying. Bapak Depparinding got an important mission from the government outside the area, when he heard that his mother had become terminally ill. However, he did not want to cancel his mission and he did not want either that his mother would die in his absence. Therefore, in secret, he called Bapak Demmatande and requested him to postpone the death of his mother with his incantations. So it happened. After several weeks, when Bapak Depparinding was back home, he sent out a message to Bapak Demmatande to use another incantation so that the old mother could die.

Bangun-Bangun that Prolong LifeThe least dangerous incantations of bangun-bangun are those which prolong the life of somebody who is dying. However, for the patient it is very hard

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because he or she will usually experience much pain. Ne’ Ru’da told me with shame that it had happened several times that he had forgotten the patient after he had administered the incantation. Only after the family came to him with complaints about the suffering of the patient, Ne’ Ru’da was aware of his omission and performed the necessary acts to let the patient die.

If this happens, it means that the patient is suffering terrible. The body is decaying, but life remains. The body rots away, but the patient does not die. For this process a separate expression is used, bosi tuo, which means ‘rotting while living’. Another expression is diluppi’-luppi’pi lentekna, which means ‘the leg is turned around’, a very painful procedure.

Reasons for a Request for Lengthening of Someone’s Life through Bangun-Bangun

People mention several reasons why the prolongation of life by means of ban-gun-bangun is asked for a dying person. The following reasons are pointed out.

a. A family is busy with the rice harvest. It would be very unwelcome if a member of the family would die. The expert in bangun-bangun is asked in this case to arrange a solution until the harvest is brought in.

b. A family has to visit a ceremony in another place. Suddenly it looks like somebody in the family circle is going to die. The bangun-bangun can provide a way out.

c. Someone is in danger to die at a far distance from his village. The trans-port of a dead body would be very difficult and costly. The incantations bring about that the person stays alive and is able to walk to his village, whereupon death can come.

d. Sometimes the bangun-bangun expert is called for an ill young person who is in danger to die, with the hope that the illness can be cured. However, for this purpose the incantations are not meant and seldom used.

Two Bangun-Bangun that Prolong LifeSome of the men who gave the words of bangun-bangun incantations to Bapak Nicodemus and me were worried to disclose the words in the original Mamasa language. Especially incantations that must end the life of somebody are con-sidered as dangerous. People are convinced of the power of the words in their original form. The following incatation has the purpose to prolong the life of somebody who is dying.

I hang up the base of his soul Ku toke’ batang sunga’naTogether with the base of his breathing sola batang penawanna


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I bend the base of his tongue kuluppi’ lengko lianaI hold the foundation of his heart in my fist kukambong batu atenaI bend constantly his feet kuluppi’ luppi’ lenteknaWith a prayer directed to the gods baraka do’a bisa, sande

di alla ta’ alla.To be repeated three times silently without breathing.

Ne’ Demmatande gave also an incantation that has the power to let a dying man walk back home over a long distance.

You, NN, will return below earth iko si anu, letakko dadi lasuleko rokko litak

You will become earth mendadi litakI order the wind kupasan lako bara’Your spirit becomes strong matoro penawammuWith a prayer directed to the gods baraka do’a bisa sande

di alla ta’ allaTo be repeated three times silently without breathing.

Ne’ Demmatande sends the incantation with the wind in the direction of the patient. He has also a method to control the effectiveness of the incantation. He bends his fingers one by one and listens how many fingers crack. Depend-ing on how many times he hears the cracking sound of his fingers, he knows if the patient will die quickly or stays alive and for how many days. If no sound is heard, the bangun-bangun failed to have effect.

Ne’ Demmatande states that he is able also with his bangun-bangun to let rise a person who already has died and to make him walk a few steps. However, he is not willing to perform this act because it would only be a sensational play without purpose. He thinks that it would be a sin against the creator To-Metampa if he would misuse the incantations like that.

Bangun-Bangun that End LifeThe bangun-bangun that end life are a dangerous kind of incantations. They are mainly used to cancel the effects of the bangun-bangun that prolong life. To underline the effect of the incantation sometimes an action is performed also. It occurs that together with the uttering of a bangun-bangun to prolong life a big machete, a parang, is chopped in a piece of wood. When the spell of the incantation is broken by a bangun-bangun which ends life, the parang is removed from the wood.

Ne’ Ru’da is very afraid to share the incantations with Bapak Nicodemus and me. He is anxious that he will be blamed if the incantations are misused in

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future if they become known to other people. We convince him that the words that he might give us, will never be used as bangun-bangun incantations.

The man who is known as a specialist in the field of bangun-bangun, Ne’ Demmatande from the village Batarirak, feels less doubt to share the incanta-tions that he remembers. Several years ago the situation was different. At that time he worked for the government in the local prison. His nephew, Bapak Ni-codemus, went to his house to ask some incantations from him, but he refused. The reason he gave at that time was that he was afraid of some people of the government. The government had prohibited the use of stones and incanta-tions. Besides, he did not want to be known as a man with intimate knowledge regarding incantations that were related to the former religion, the aluk.

When we met him again some years later, the circumstances had changed. He was now a pensioner, living quietly in his village. Moreover, he was recently asked by a prominent man in the society and in the church, Bapak Depparind-ing, to perform his abilities. He agreed to give us information, but on condition that he would receive some money or clothes. We gave him some money. A big amount was not necessary. He explained that the purpose of the money was mainly symbolical. The transfer of these important incantations cannot be done just like that. That would be some kind of insult to the gods who pro-vided them. The incantations are in some sense assumed to be very precious, especially regarding their origin from the other world of the gods.

It became obvious, that without the presence of his nephew Bapak Nico-demus, he would never have agreed to know himself incantations, and even less to share them with us. Bapak Nicodemus convinced him that we were very interested to receive them in order to better understand the old traditions of the Toraja’s.

Some Bangun-Bangun to End LifeIn some of the incantations to end life that we got from Bapak Demmatande the role of the wind is conspicuous. The wind functions as a mediator to trans-port the power of the incantation, but also as a metaphor for the spirit of the ill person. When the wind drops, the spirit of the ill person will stop also and he will die. The first incantation that I mention here can be used to end the life of somebody, ill or healthy. The words are valued as very powerful in the original language. The second and the third incantation are used to stop the effects of an incantation to prolong life.

The sun hides behind the clouds Mallunka matanna alloSo that I am going to hide angku la mallun


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The face of the moon is extinguished Pideka lindona bulanSo that I will be extinguished angku la pideThe sun falls down Tobangka matanna alloSo that I shall fall down Angku la tobangThe face of the moon drops down Dondonka lindona bulanSo that I shall drop down angku dondonMay god be willing to hear Bara’ka’ doa bisa sande’ di

alla ta’ alla (3x)To be uttered three times in the heart, without breathing.

When an ill person is kept alive by means of an incantation bangun-ban-gun, it is important that the working of the incantation comes to an end. To stop the power of the incantation, Bapak Demmatande uses the following bangun-bangun.

I entrust my message to the wind pepasanku lako bara’May the wind drop down dondon bara’Because its breathing has been taken out aka mallaimi penawaWith a prayer directed to the gods baraka do’a bisa sande di

alla ta’ allaTo be repeated three times silently without breathing.

When the body of an ill person is decaying because death cannot come as re-sult of a bangun-bangun, Bapak Demmatande has to use a slightly different bangun-bangun. The words are as follows:

I entrust my message to the wind pepasanku lako bara’May the wind drop down dondon bara’May it stay behind, farther and farther dipaundi liuWith a prayer directed to the gods baraka do’a bisa sande di

alla ta’ allaTo be repeated three times silently without breathing.

e Incantations that Make InvisibleThe results of incantations with the name basa siraun are spectacular. These incantations make the user of them invisible, raun, which means ‘shrouded’.

Until the coming of the Dutch colonial government in Mamasa the villages were often in a state of war. The elderly people who still remember the sto-ries of their parents speak about a continue war between brothers. On top of

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it, the villages sent each year men out for a headhunting raid. In those cir-cumstances it was very important to be able to hide for enemies. One of the means was to use incantations that had the power to make the user invisible, next to the power that was derived from stones which could protect against weapons.

In conversations with people in Mamasa I noticed that it was less difficult to get these incantations of basa siraun, than the incantations of bangun- bangun. The reason was probably that the latter incantations are still in use, while the former are seldom used any more and above all are not related to live and death.

Bapak Nicodemus told me about something that recently happened in a vil-lage, not far from his home. Somebody had accidently seen that something was moving in an empty house. The inhabitants were out on a journey far away. When he peeped in through a crack in the wall, he saw a shape walking. It re-sembled a person. Immediately he called other men from the village and they surrounded the house. Then a monkey appeared on the roof. They grabbed and killed the animal. However, just after the monkey was killed they saw a cat sneaking away. The people were convinced that the thief had made use of a basa siraun to change his appearance in a monkey and then in a cat.

According to the stories, the incantations of basa siraun can make invisible, but can also cause a change in appearance so that the person looks like an ani-mal. Even if the animal has been killed, it does not mean that the person inside the animal is dead also. His spirit is still alive and can take the guise of another animal or return to his own body.

For me it was very remarkable that in the village, where most of the people don’t live in the old traditions any more, the story was believed as true. People were convinced that powers from the other world of the gods were active. Even Bapak Nicodemus told the story for real. It is very interesting to see to which extend the living inside or outside a community can influence the willingness of people to accept certain things for true.

Some Incantations that Make Invisible, basa siraun.

Even if the streets are busy moi ponno dio lalanEven although the heads are like a flat field moi merratte ulunaStill I go in the middle past them laku ola sia akuI go between them laku pa’tangngai siaI go past three hills ku lewanpa dua buntuI go over three mountains ku lolonpa tallu taneteThe enemy looks around mane messaileri wali


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The enemy is amazed mane tirambanri musu’May god be willing to hear Baraka’ sengo pabisa.To be repeated three times silently without breathing.

The gods are going with me dewata kusolan lelengThe lord is walking together with me puang kusolan menono’Help me so that I am invisible tunduina’ ma’siraunAccompany me to blind their eyes solanna’ ussundu mataWith a prayer directed to the gods baraka do’a bisa sande di alla

ta’ allaTo be repeated three times silently without breathing.

Thousands of people are walking sasa’bu tau molengkoHundreds go in the middle of the road saratu metanga lalanI let their hands wriggle kuliko-liko limannaI make turn around his look kusimballu’ pengngitannaSo that he can do nothing anna tang aka nababeSo that he can utter nothing anna tang aka kada-kadaWith a prayer directed to the gods baraka do’a bisa sande di alla


Just like the twists in the paku susi tilikona paken(fern with twisted leaves)Become a rattan bridge naporangkai kaladaiI shall expel his emotion lakualai nassunnaI shall take away his desire kupamalele elo’na.With a prayer directed to the gods baraka do’a bisa sande di alla


If people arriveBe quiet down thereI reach the small hillWith eight mountains aroundOnly then, when you are safeThe enemy is aware that you passedThe drums are beatenMay god be willing to hearTo be uttered three times in the heart, without breathing.

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3 Connection with the Other World of the Gods

a Conditions for the IncantationsThe most important condition for the use of incantations which people always emphasize is the requirement to utter them inaudible, in the heart, three times without breathing.23 The motivation for this condition is the idea that the breathing of the own body is replaced by the breathing of the spirit who has given this incantation and is going to transport it to its destination.

Breathing has an essential significance. Often the incantations of bangun-bangun are sent along with the wind. In fact, the wind is a metaphor for the breathing of the spirit that transfers the words of the incantation and makes them effective. For this reason wind has to be created by the owner of a stone when he blows, massimburu’, over the water in a bowl in which he had put his stone, while stirring in it with a knife. In this way the water may become a medicine. While the incantation is uttered three times in the heart and the water with the stone is stirred with the knife, the blowing of the breath sym-bolizes the working of the spirit. The wind or the blowing over the water is a mediator, which is accentuated by the requirement not to draw breath at that moment.

The effectiveness of incantations that are sent along with the wind is well known and is often feared. Bapak Sandagandang told us about an ill making effect that he once experienced from hostile purposes of the blowing of in-cantations, tiup-tiup. He was convinced that certain people had hostile feeling towards him and tried to inflict damage to him by way of tiup-tiup, although they lived about 80 kilometres away from him.

According to Bapak Sandagandang, the only way to ward off the working of those incantations was to activate anti incantations. An old man in his village could help him. The poison of the hostile incantation could be neu-tralized in the way of putting a special stone in water, stirring it, and blowing over the bowl, while reciting three times the anti incantation, inaudible without breathing. He felt that the strength returned to his body. He was cured.

People cannot with certainty explain why the incantations must be repeat-ed three times. They only state that it is necessary in order to obtain the de-sired results. Probably, however, the number three gives an indication in which

23 Mauss (1950:50) mentions that incantations must be recited silently in the heart and also that they are blown with the wind in a certain direction.


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direction an explanation could be sought. This number has a special signifi-cance in the traditional Toraja religion, the aluk.

The special significance of the number three is obvious in the saying that Ne’ Ru’da mentioned when he gave us information about the incantations of bangun-bangun. In the saying is said that a human being is made from three elements.

The saying goes as follows:

Urummu anna la dadi dipa’tallu to ditampaUai sakka raramuBaraka doa’ bisa alla ta’alla

In the beginning one is forged out of threeYour blood is coolThe prayer goes to the gods

The three elements appear directly after a child is born and is brought inside the kitchen during the ritual dipatama dapo’ (Chapter 3). There a chicken is slaughtered next to the three stones, lalikan, of the fireplace. In the ritual the child is dedicated to the three gods who are always mentioned as the impor-tant gods for the Toraja’s, the Creator, the Guide, the Caretaker, ToMetampa, ToMeolaan, ToMekambi’.

The triplet has to do with the structure of a human being and is related to the divine. At the background we find also the triple layout of the cosmos: the heavens, the earth, the underworld. If the triplet is mentioned the fundamen-tal structures are at stake.

SecrecySecrecy is important in relation to incantations. Ne’ Ru’da told us that he can cure people from an inflammation of the throat by means of blowing an incantation in their direction. When I asked him to share the words with Bapak Nicodemus and me, he answered that it was forbidden because he had received them as an inheritance from his father, who got it from his father and so on. This line of transfer could not be changed, especially since the incantation originated from the first ancestor, who came from the heavens, a tomanurun.

The demand for secrecy has therefore to do with the origin of the incanta-tions. Besides the argument of the godly origin, the danger of misuse of in-cantations, especially those which bereave somebody of his life, plays also an important part.

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Necessity of an Offering or a Set of Clothes when Incantations are Disclosed

Sometimes incantations or stones are given to others. Then an offering is necessary, a chicken of a certain colour,24 or clothes that once were worn by the new owner. In the demand to offer a chicken becomes clear the divine connection of incantations and stones. In the transfer of a set of clothes we see something like an exchange of personality. This is in line with an often heard remark about stones with power, namely that the spirit of the stone converges with the spirit of the person who owns it. An elderly man, Ne’ Piet Upo, told me the following:

I possessed a powerful stone, a batu la ulung. I had found that stone in the top of a barana’ tree. I felt much attached to that stone. A man from the nobility heard about the stone and asked it from me. I could not refuse his request. As an exchange he gave me a set of Toraja clothes. I felt very distressed to leave the stone with him. It was as if I had thrown away a part of my soul.

The same applies to incantations. When it is given to somebody else, a part of the essence of the owner goes with it. Therefore a set of clothes has to be given in exchange. The expression in the Toraja language is ma’losokan. The new owner receives powers of invulnerability, invisibility, healing, that go together with the stones or incantations. Those powers are related to the divine origin, but also with the person who got them and in that way entered in a special relationship with the gods.

b Conditions for the Stones NourishmentAn important condition for the continuous working of the stones is the de-mand to nourish25 them regularly. This happens with blood from the crest, lali’na, of a red cock. Only in this way the stones can stay ‘alive’. This procedure

24 Bapak Nicodemus gives the following information. A black chicken is used as an offer-ing for the death spirits, see also Kruyt 1923–24:306. A white chicken must be offered if the owner of the stone wishes to become rich through the working of it. A red chicken is related to courage and invulnerability.

25 Kruyt (1906:158–9) thinks that the nourishment of the stone has nothing to do with the spirit or soul of the stone, nor with the spirit of the owner. The purpose would be the ad-dition of soul matter, zielestof, coming from the blood of the animal. This opinion is not supported by the people in Mamasa. They have the opinion that the offering is necessary for the spirit of the stone.


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is not necessary at fixed times. The important thing is that the owner gives in this way attention to the stone from time to time. Some people say that it must happen at least three times every year. Others think that blood from the crest of a chicken must be smeared on the stone every time a chicken is slaughtered in the kitchen. The expression for the smearing of blood is mangrara.

All the informants agree that the effectiveness and the lifetime of a stone de-pend on the smearing of blood. The idea of life and dead of a power stone has to do with the belief that a stone has its own spirit or soul, which determines the working of it. Ambe’ Demmasinga, who possesses many stones himself, is convinced that the spirit of a power stone is connected with the correspond-ing spirit in the other world of the gods, who had given it and always stays the owner of it. That is why the soul of the man or woman who now possesses the stone not only joins the spirit of the stone, but has also a relationship with the spirit in the world of the gods. This relationship must stay alive. For this reason the stone must receive its nourishment regularly, otherwise its power, coming from the other world, will stop.

The necessity of mangrara, the smearing of blood, shows that the stones are supposed to have their own life, directly connected with the other world of the gods. Bapak Depparinding told us about a belt with stones,26 which he had left in his home village, when he had to go to town for a course. He had, however, forgotten to give instructions regarding the nourishment of the stones.

One day the spirit-owner of the stone came to inspect his property. He came in the shape of a giant with a beard and a helmet. The frightened people ran out of the house. When later that evening somebody peeped through a hole in the wall, he saw the ghost sitting in the room, waiting. Afterwards the people told Bapak Depparinding about the event. He understood that his negligence to make arrangements for offerings had to be the cause of the trouble.

The conviction that power stones have a life of their own appears also in sto-ries about movements of stones that are sometimes noticed. People say that a stone which lacks enough nourishment becomes restless. If this situation takes long, the bag in which it is kept can be frayed and raveled out. If the owner of a stone suddenly dies, the stone goes back by itself to its previous owner. In this respect distance is of no importance. People tell that, once, a stone came back to a Toraja village all the way from Java.

It appears that stones which came from the other world and got a place in this world never return to their origin. If a stone is buried together with its owner, a child or a grandchild receives through a dream a message in which

26 Toraja men used to wear a special red belt on their skin in which they kept their power stones (Figure 48).

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he is urged to look for the stone at a certain place, most often at the graveyard. Then he finds it, usually under the main post of the burial house, takes it back home, and can use it himself.

Necessity of UseThe fact that a stone may not be buried together with the deceased owner of it, has to do with the necessity for the stone to be used. If a stone lies unused for a long time, it ‘dies’. Sometimes the owners of stones perform tricks with their stones, not only to test its capabilities, but also to keep it busy. People tell that they experienced this for instance when the church in Mamasa started to be es-tablished. Before the beginning of the church service at Sunday mornings men tested their stones by way of shining light flashes. They wanted to show off the power of their stones and at the same time to keep them quiet by using them.

Ambe’ Demmasinga warns that not only the regularly use of the stones is required, but also the use of them in the right way. This is especially important, according to him, since the stones connect their possessor with the spirits in the other world who in fact own it. Those spirits do not want the power of the stone to be played with, nor to be used to harm somebody, or to steal some-thing. The result could be that the spirit-owner will send a punishment to the perpetrator.

To Carry on or in the BodyStones have to stay in contact with the body of their owner. Not the body, how-ever, is the most important thing in this requirement, but the connection be-tween the spirit of the stone and the spirit of the person. Often the stones are carried in a cloth on the naked skin, but sometimes this could be a dangerous place. It is told about a strong man in the Toraja society, Bapak Silaba, that he had put a stone under the skin of his upper arm. Especially in times of struggle this method was often used. In this way the working of the stone would never falter.

Bapak Depparinding told me that he sometimes swallowed a stone. This happened in the dangerous times of the 1950s when Islamic gangs made the area unsafe. Other men did hide a stone in the anus or in the scrotum. It hap-pened that men were numb for blows from the enemy and amazingly contin-ued fighting them as if they were invulnerable.

For some stones it is not required to carry them on the body. The stones given by the rice god, ToTiboyong, batu pare and batu tedong, can be kept in the rice barn. People believe that they work automatically to yield a rich rice harvest and to protect the water buffaloes. They only require some blood of a chicken from time to time.


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All other stones need personal contact with the body of their owner. The power in the stone can in this way influence the power of the person who has become one with it. The power originates from the other world of the gods and is available through the vestiges from that world.

Prohibitions and CommandsIf a cat jumps over a batu punti or a batu galling, the stone could lose its pow-er.27 Bapak Nicodemus tells that men who must relieve themselves, have to untie the cloth with their stones and put it down. The reason is not in the first place that the stones may not be touched by urine of faeces, but that they may not touch the body at that moment. Bapak Nicodemus has heard from an old man that the stone would be ‘dead’ at the same moment. Seemingly the spirit that is in the stone may not be associated with excrements. Here also the idea comes to the fore that people experience stones as living objects that possess a spirit or a soul which forms the essence of it.

c Source of the Power of Stones and IncantationsElderly people in the Mamasa area emphasize that the origin and the effective-ness of power stones and incantations are closely related. Most incantations are believed to originate from primordial times when the sons of the gods, the tomanurun, descended from the heavens to the earth. Sometimes an incanta-tion is received by way of a dream. People are convinced that deities can use dreams to confer messages and in this case incantations.28 Their effectiveness is anchored in their origin and continuous connection with the other world of the gods. The conclusion of each incantation with words of prayer show the dependency on the gods.

Stones are only kept if the receiver is convinced of their origin in the other world of the gods. Those stones have no external characteristics that show their particularity. People recognize them from the power that emanates from them and sometimes also from the warmth that one feels when they are held in ones hand. Ambe’ Demmasinga explained to me the difference between normal stones and power stones. He said:

27 Kruyt (1923–24:280) and Nooy-Palm (1979:215–6) write about the heavenly origin of the cat. The cat is valued for the catching of mice and thus its importance for the rice harvest. It is also seen as an animal that helps the leader of the realm of the dead, Indo’ Robo, to judge newcomers and to discover goods that were stolen in order to send them back.

28 Information from ambe’ Allolinggi, a elderly man of high nobility who lives in the village Rante Buda.

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If you take a normal stone in your hand, you feel nothing. However, as soon as you hold a power stone, a balo’-balo’, your experience is totally different. The stone feels warm and on top of that it gives you an exited feeling, as if your own spirit becomes inspired. This feeling of high spirits comes from the spirits who are related to the stone.

It is obvious that people are not in doubt about stones that are acquired in the way of mantara’, the grasping of vestiges from the other world in caves, under a banana tree, or at a graveyard, or stones that are found in peculiar circum-stances. Those stones originate obviously from the other world of the gods. These balo’-balo’, also called embe’, have a spirit that stays connected to the gods and guarantees the effectiveness of the stones that they inhabit, provided the nourishment is given regularly. They have some sort of ‘life’. They have a soul (Wilken 1912:3; Kruyt 1906:156, 199, 202; Schefold 1988:271).

The aspect of life, as it is found with power stones, is not present in other actions or objects of which people expect some sort of effect. These tatakan are herbs, objects, and acts, that because of their shape or their characteristics represent something of the purpose that is hoped to be achieved.29 In the con-text of a world which is permeated with spiritual powers and forces, the expec-tation of spiritual powers from the gods in the other world is prominent, but at the same time the symbolic values play their part. A shape, action, or content shows the user the purpose that can be reached with the tatakan. At the same time, however, the use of the tatakan is understood as an incitement at the ad-dress of the gods, the dewata, to effectuate the intention of the act. The symbol functions as a prayer in the shape of an act. The awareness of the animated nature of plants and objects, but above all the presence and the working of gods, transforms acts in wordless prayers.30

Ambe’ Pampangkaraeng, who possesses and uses power stones, explained to me that you can only use such stones if you believe in their origin and power. He added that you have to be, so to say, a brother of the spirit who initially gave the stone, and therefore also of the stone itself.

Bapak Nicodemus told me that he had asked his uncle about the pow-er of stones. He answered him that he used to have many stones in a red cloth, bound around his waist. He trusted that those stones would give him

29 Schefold (1988:38, 498) explains the meaning of the characteristics of plants and objects and the activation of the instrumentality by means of offerings, gestures, and incantations.

30 This view goes further than the idea of Skorupski (1976:137) about symbolic acts and the conception of Schefold (1988:24–5) who writes that souls or characteristics are like me-diators that communicate and effectuate the desired purpose.


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the courage to walk in dangerous areas in the time of the Islamic gangs that tried to force people to change religion.31 The uncle was very happy with the protection of the stones at that time. Then Bapak Nicodemus asked him about his use of the stones at present. The uncle answered that he does not use them anymore because he became a Christian. The prayer to Jesus had replaced the wordless prayer via the stones to the gods.

In another story that Bapak Nicodemus told me appears also the belief of people that gods of the other world are working through power stones. His story goes as follows:

The matter of powerful stones influences until these days the thoughts of people, also Christians. Not long ago a young man in a remote part of the Mamasa area had been locked up in a cage of bamboo.32 His older broth-er, a reverend in another place, came to visit his family. He was startled to find his brother locked up in such a miserable way. His parents explained to him that the boy was often angry and could become a threat for oth-ers, probably because he is influenced by bad spirits. Then the older son asked them, ‘do you still have stones, balo’-balo’ ?’ After denying initially, the father confessed, ‘Yes I still keep power stones in a cloth in our house’.

31 Koubi 2003:18; Buijs 2006:16. It happened in the years after 1950.32 This happens until the present day with persons who have a severe mental disorder. It is

done to ‘calm them down’ so that their behaviour may change.

Figure 48 Power stones are usually kept in a red cloth, bound around the waist, mostly not vis-ible under one’s shirt.

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After speaking with each other they agreed that trusting stones means also trusting the spirits who are behind the stones. They came to the con-clusion that such ambivalence could cause the mental disorder that ap-peared in the behaviour of the younger brother and son. That evening the father burned his stones.

This story, which is no exception, makes clear that people in the Mamasa area are still living in an era of transition.


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chapter 5

Pairan and Magic, Personal Religion in Daily Life

In the personal religion in Mamasa characterized by pairan and magical acts with stones and incantations, always a relationship with the other world of the gods is present in the mind of the people. From that other side benefits are ex-pected to be received, blessings in the form of tranquillity, prosperity, security, protection, health, welfare. People experience and practise religion and magic mainly to receive those blessings. Their traditional religion can be character-ized by the belief or conviction that gods from the other world are able and willing to give blessings. This means of course that people in their religion have to believe in the existence of that other world with its gods and the influence or impact that those gods can and will have in their own life. However, the bless-ings are not received automatically. They are obtained in the way of regular contact, which is performed by rituals, prayers, offerings.

Because the relationship with the other world of the gods has also a deci-sive place in the magical use of stones and incantations, we understand it as a part of religion. Although magic belongs to the religion of people, the differ-ences between magic and religion are also obvious. At the beginning of the last century Mauss (1950:13) already remarked that magic is different from re-ligion with respect to the circumstances in which it takes place. It is not an organized cult, but carried and maintained by the belief of the community. In three aspects the magical proceedings in Mamasa are clearly distinguished from religion, namely secrecy, ownership and attachment to objects or words. Before summarizing in a concluding way the questions that I put forward at the beginning of this study about the existence of a personal religion in Mamasa, I should like to mention those prominent differences between religion and magic and to give some remarks about the environment in which people, also in the Mamasa area, believe in and experience religion and magical acts. As an example from the Western world I relate some interesting topics from physical science in which also the importance of one’s own environment becomes clear.

Differences between Magic and Religion

SecrecyThe first difference between magic and religion has to do with openness and secrecy. In religion, the proceedings can take place in public or in an individual

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way, but never as a secret that may not be shared with others and must be hid-den carefully. This is obvious in the public rituals for life or death, but also in the individual rituals of pairan. The latter are small rituals, performed in the middle of a family, or in a personal way, but they have not the characteristic of secrecy. Rather they have to do with a personal experience and expectation in the relationship with the other world of the gods. In magic, however, always some sort of secrecy is involved in the proceedings that take place. The attri-butes that are used to produce an effect, may not be disclosed to others in a free way. This means that magic has a special position in the whole of religion with its relationship to the other world of the gods.

OwnershipThe second difference between magic and religion has to do with owner-ship. Religion and the means that are used in it are owned by the commu-nity. Certain parts of religion such as pairan are performed in an individual way, but never as if the religious action is owned by the performer. When a chicken is slaughtered in the kitchen to ask for blessings for the family, the same ritual can also be used in the same form by another family to obtain blessings for their own individual needs. The means that are used in religion are not private. Everybody can make use of them with personal or collec-tive intentions. This differs from the means that are used in magic. They are obtained in a special way as an inheritance from father to son, or individu-ally in the way of showing outstanding courage in approaching the other world of the gods. The ownership of those means can only change under strict conditions. This aspect of magic gives it a separate place, although it stays inside religion as a relationship with the other world of the gods, and, as Mauss (1950:118) has stressed, magic can only work if it is carried by the belief of the community.

Attachment to Objects or WordsIn religion certain objects and words can receive and preserve a special sig-nificance. We can think for instance of names of gods, words, rituals, prayers, or particular clothes and objects used by the priestess toburake, or by women who mourn in funeral rituals. All those words and objects, however, have no power that was obtained from the other world of the gods as their essential characteristic. This is different in magic. Here, powers originating from the other world of the gods are inherently attached to the words or the objects. They are not only attached loosely at the outside, but they form essentially part of the objects or the words. Without those spiritual powers the objects or words would not have achieved a place in magical performances. The spiritual

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powers ‘living’ in objects or words constitute the relationship with the other world of the gods and hold magical acts inside religion.

A Closed Circuit

We arrive all the time at the conviction of the people that it is possible to ap-proach the other world of the gods in order to receive help or change in the circumstances of their life. The way of approaching that world differs. It can be done through rituals, prayers, incantations, or offerings, but always the inten-tion is the same, to receive blessings from the other side.

The results of the reaching out to the other world of the gods are experi-enced inside the scope of convictions and experiences of the people who are looking for blessings. This process looks like a closed circuit. People who do not share the same perceptions do not receive or experience anything. As Mauss (1950:118) wrote, ‘The community pays itself out with the false money of its dreams’. Although Douglas (1966:70) is right in her comment that the people themselves trust this money so that it cannot be called ‘false’, the intention of Mauss is clear. This money is made by the people who make use of it. They be-lieve in spiritual forces that arrange the outcome of magical acts. Those forces, however, can only come into life within the belief of the same people.

The closed circuit of convictions and beliefs is found in religion as well as in magic. Just like religious experiences are real and true within a certain reli-gious community, even so magical practises and magical results fit in a distinct environment of faith. Apparently each environment of people has its own experience horizon of reality, which cannot, or only in very limited ways, be commented upon or evaluated from another background where other values count.

When scholars like Durkheim, Mauss, Lévi-Strauss, Skorupski, Schefold, ask to pay attention to the way of thinking and spiritual horizon of the people ob-served, they try to find in the specific environment of those people the means that connect them with a world that the investigators themselves do not know from their own cultural background. This attention, however, is of utmost im-portance if we try to understand something like patterns of thought and mo-tives that inspire and move people. For instance, symbolic acts like throwing ash over the roof of the house of an ill person, or the turning upside down of a sleeping mat, have power and arouse feelings of expectation or fear only in the environment of people who believe in their effectiveness. Those acts function as wordless prayers to spiritual beings like gods. The acts call for the effectuation of powers from the other world of the gods. The same relationship

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between objects and the spiritual world applies to the use of power stones and more clearly to incantations.

Belief in Physical Sciences

A totally different example of belief that is strongly related to the world in which people put their trust can be found in the world of physical sciences built by theories and hypotheses of scholars. In the theory of quantum phys-ics a particle is believed to exist at the same moment in different places, even at different sides of the universe. A change in the state of one particle can have immediate influence on the state of another, entangled, particle even at a distance that cannot be bridged by the velocity of light at that moment. Einstein called this phenomenon, ‘spooky action at a distance’, because no explanation can be given in known physical theories. Something strange must be the case and even the suggestion of hidden variables could not produce a solution. A relationship with magical acts can be found in the, apparent, re-sult of the act, without any understanding about the means that bring about the effect.

An even more striking example of the belief in unproven premises, that are invented or that are believed, can be found in the theory of the existence of a multiverse. Many scholars wonder why our earth is just right for life. Paul Davies in his study The Goldilocks Enigma, Penguin Books, 2006, gives an in-teresting account of theories in physical science to explain the puzzle. He calls it an enigma that all the laws of physics and all the physical constants are ex-actly right for life on earth. This puzzle has no proven solution. A number of physicists, however, is convinced that our universe is only one of innumerable others. They assume, or believe on statistical grounds of probability that our universe happens to be the one in which life could develop. Just like in religion and in magic also in this case another world, a multiverse, is believed to solve questions that have no proven answers in our own cultural world.

Issues Accepted without Understanding Them

In Mamasa we hear peculiar stories that are strongly believed to be true and even are told by people who claim to be eyewitnesses. They assert that certain stones are different from other stones because they have power and can give invulnerability or invisibility to their owner. Others tell that a saying or incan-tation uttered in a special way several times, has impact on someone or on a


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situation at a great distance. For me those stories are interesting and at the same time very peculiar. How could it be possible that an action here could have immediate effect in another place, far away? At the same time I realize also that such kind of events is believed in all the religions, all over the world. In all the religions certain workings or effects are assumed to originate from spiritual beings somewhere inside or outside the universe. Laws of physics, such as the velocity of light, play no part in the belief of the believers. Action with an immediate effect, independent of distance, is widely accepted. In the context of a religion the implementation of physical laws is not considered seriously.

The question arises if all those beliefs must be thrown away or at least neglected as superstition or sorcery. Apart from the fact that nobody is in the position to throw away beliefs of other people or stamp them with charac-terisations that emerge from their own cultural world, the beliefs and convic-tions of other people are very interesting and worth to be investigated with openness and without valuation. In that way we can learn a lot from relation-ships and powers that others experience in their belief and acts in their daily life, especially if we keep in mind that still many secrets in nature wait to be disclosed.

Conclusion of the Investigation into Personal Religion of the Toraja’s

Hearing the stories from many elderly people in the area of Mamasa I feel impressed by the way the traditional religion, the aluk, used to permeate and dominate the society. The whole community was involved in the public ritu-als that were held when somebody died. This was especially the case when a funeral had to be organized for somebody of high position in relation to his or her degree of nobility. Also the rituals for life, notably thanksgiving ritu-als, were conducted in the middle of the community and attended by many people from nearby villages and from the far surroundings. It is clear that the religion with its search for blessings for life on earth and for the reaching of one’s destiny in the realm of the death affected everybody’s life in all layers of the society. The question as it was raised in the Introduction of this study can now be answered. For the Toraja’s there was, and for a diminishing community still is, more than public rituals to define their religion. On a daily basis the personal religion of pairan and magic was found everywhere in all the levels of the community. I would like to summarize the characteristics of that personal religion in the following four points.

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1 A Spiritual World of Spirits as ‘Mysterious Environment’In the opinion of Mauss and of Schefold, which we discussed in the first Chap-ter, appeared a difference in emphasis on the relation between magical words and acts on the one hand and religion on the other hand. Schefold stresses the activation of the soul of objects, plants or animals by way of incantations, gestures or offerings, while Mauss points to a spiritual world of spirits, a myste-rious environment for people originating from outside the community of the actors. Both scholars agree on the importance to recognize the particular en-vironment in which deeds and words of magic are functioning, which ought to be respected. But while Schefold mentions offerings, together with gestures and incantations, as means to activate the soul of plants, animals, objects, to enact magical proceedings, Mauss points to offerings in relation to the belief of the people to involve spiritual powers, gods, and spirits, who are supposed to carry out the intended purposes of the magical deeds and words.

The investigation among the Toraja’s of Mamasa clearly points to the exis-tence of a spiritual world and the dependence on gods and spirits in the belief of the aluk generation. Offerings are brought in public and in private religious acts, but also in relation to magical performances. They do not have the inten-tion to activate a mediating soul of the attributes, plants or animals that are used, but much more to activate the gods or spirits that are expected to accom-plish the wished outcome. The gods or spirits are believed to be essential in the performing of magical deeds or words.

2 Magic as Part of ReligionThe conclusion about the role of offerings is very important when we think about the position of magic in relation to religion. The role of gods and spirits who are approached in their world outside the cultural world of the people de-fines the boundary of religious acts. The involvement of offerings in Mamasa leads to the conclusion that magical acts and words, which are performed by people in the society, belong to the religion, although the proceedings of those magical acts and words differ very much from proceedings in other parts of the aluk religion.

3 Pairan, Private Experience of ReligionThe private experience of religion is mainly shaped by the pairan feeling of responsibility for the family and the wellbeing of the society. Although most acts of pairan take place indoors, in the kitchen of the house, no secrecy is involved as is the case with magical acts and words. People, who are aware of their responsibility for others, believe that pairan means a task given by the gods and at the same time a religious necessity to approach those gods for their blessings.


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4 Functionaries in the Private ReligionIn the time that the aluk religion dominated the life of all the people in the society, the personal religion of pairan was widespread throughout the com-munity. This happened, however, in a distinct way. The manner the whole of the society was involved was concentrated on the religious role that was exer-cised by the leading man in each house, the father or the grandfather, and the leading man in the society in its different structures, the adat leaders, the rice priests and the death priests. All those men slaughtered from time to time a chicken or a pig in the kitchen of their houses or on a dike near a rice field, in which way they sent their prayers through the soul of the animal to the gods to ask for blessings. They actually performed the task of priests to approach the gods and at the same time to watch over the obedience to the commands and prohibitions given by the gods, the pemali.

All the public rituals about life on earth are performed by female priests, the toburake. The only exception is formed by the rituals in relation to the rice season. Because of the blessings that are needed from both the ‘male’ heaven and the ‘female’ wilderness for the fertility of the rice, the two sides are needed and the rice priest, the so’bok, can be a man or a woman.

While in the public rituals for life, rambu tuka’, a woman, the female priest toburake, has the leading role, the offerings of pairan belong to the task of men, also the pairan that is related with the building of a house. This religious task of a man in a household has always two directions, especially when he per-forms the pairan for a new born child in his family. The two sides appear in the offerings that a man brings in the kitchen. Through paisung, parts of a chicken or a pig are presented as prayers to the gods in the heavens and through pang-kiki’ smaller parts are presented as prayers to the gods of the earth, of the wil-derness. Blessings are expected from both sides, from the gods in the heavens, including the ancestors who already returned to the heavens, and from the gods in the wilderness. For those religious acts in the kitchen women in the house may slaughter the animal, but they are not allowed to offer the paisung and the pangkiki’. In the public domain the tasks are separated. Men, tokeada’, rule in the society and women, toburake, rule in the religion. In the private religion, however, the offerings to request for blessings belong to the tasks of men.

Could Pairan be Established in a New Way?

We have seen that many elderly people in the area of Mamasa who remember the situation that was dominated by the aluk religion have great concerns about developments in the society. Their concern is very much understandable

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if we take notice of the radical changes that have taken place in modern times. Not so long ago, until the second half of the last century, religion and society were intimately connected. In all the relationships, in public as well as in the private domain, religion played a prominent role. This meant that the gods where expected in all circumstances to indicate the way of behaviour through their commands and prohibitions. The blessing that could be provided by the gods were believed to be essential for the wellbeing, prosperity, and safety in this life and in the future after death. No part in the private life of the people and their relationships in the community was believed to be subtracted from the will and the guidance of the gods and the necessity to receive their bless-ings. This also meant that the people who were accepted to represent the gods and therefore were in the position to mediate the rules and the blessings, were of utmost importance. The leader in all public affairs, tokeada’, the priestess in the public rituals for life, toburake, the official in mortuary rituals, tomebalun, and the person who directed the whole process of the rice cultivation, toso’bok, formed the centre and the core of the whole society. They dominated all the expressions of public life and guaranteed the unity and compactness of it. On the level of the family the ordering and the blessings of the gods were medi-ated by the father or the grandfather, who often were also involved in the ruling of the wider circle of the village and the region.

This whole arrangement of pairan in its dependency on gods, their com-mands and their blessings, defined the wholeness of the fabric of the society and the place of individuals in it. However, the influence of new religions, the spread of education, political changes, and relationships with the outside world, have drastically altered the structure of the society in accordance to other patterns of thought and behaviour. The pairan with its dependency on the will and the blessings of the gods has no apparent meaning any more in the society as a whole and lacks even in the small circles of many families. While in former times daily life during the whole year was ordered by the rice cultiva-tion, directed by a religious official, the rice priest, now new seeds, fertilizers, agricultural poisons, and mechanical utensils define the production of rice. In politics the mediator of the gods, the tokeada’ has only a function at the side-line, while the real power lies often in the field of the manipulation of money.

People who still live in the aluk religion sometimes voice their wish that the Christian church would be able and be motivated to continue the essentials of pairan. Many people, however, and also many people in the churches, are very much in doubt that the wellbeing and the compactness of the society which used to be based on pairan, the relationship with the gods in a feeling of re-sponsibility for each other, could be restored again in a new way.

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Glossary

ada’ mate rules from the gods that are like death, meaning adat rules with harsh punishments

ada’ tuo rules from the gods that are directed to life, with punishments that can be carried without dying

adat rules rules originating from the gods from primordial timesa’diri posi’ post in the centre of some traditional Toraja houses.alang rice barn shaped in the form of a traditional Toraja housealla ta’alla name for the highest god, probably derived from the name

in the language of the Mandar people, Alla Subwanahu Wa Ta’alla

aluk religious ideas and their rulesaluk toyolo the traditional religionana’ malayu a child that died before the rituals of child-birth are completedangka’ to lift up. In rituals of child birth and marriage certain parts of the

meat of a pig are lifted up to the child or to the bride and groom, but ultimately to the ancestral spirits

asi-asi constellation of stars that indicate the time of the first work in the rice fields

ba’ba first room in a traditional adat house where guests are received and meetings are held

babu’ harness covered with shells used by head-huntersbaca-baca magical prayerbala lelen see banua lelenbalinna uai meaning: the child still resembles water, see ana’ malayubalo’-balo’ power stones received from the gods that give invulnerability,

protection etc.bangsawan the rank of the highest nobility, offspring of the sons of the gods.

See tomanurunbangun-bangun incantations received from the gods to lengthen life or cut off lifebanua bolong black traditional house without woodcarvings, four rooms, one

penulak in frontbanua layuk traditional house with coloured woodcarvings, four rooms, two

penulak in frontbanua lelen also called: bala lelen. Traditional house with two rooms, one

penulak in front. Pelelen are used to secure the supporting posts which rest on stones

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banua longkarin house for common people with one room, no longa, no penulak, no pelelen, no stones as foundation for the posts. See longkarrin

banua rapa’ traditional house with three or four rooms, one penulak in frontbanua sura’ traditional house with coloured woodcarvings, four rooms, one

or two penulak in frontbanua sussu’ traditional house with plain woodcarvings, four rooms and one

penulak in frontbanyan ficus benyamina, beringin or barana’ treebaraka doa bisa concluding doa in magical prayersbarana’ ficus benyamina, centre of the pa’bisuan ritualbasa siraun incantations to make someone invisiblebassi galling power stone that gives invulnerability to the ownerbatana pairan the responsibility for each other as calling from the gods is the

highway for lifebatana kemalasan the main road for the supplications, said about the offering of

paisung to the deities of the heavensbatu gaun power stone found after mist was covering the earthbatu lila power stone taken from a dead baby after its burial under the

rice barnbatu pare power stone that causes a good rice harvestbatu punti power stone received in the night under a banana tree. Another

name is sipa’ganbatu tedong power stone that makes the buffaloes healthy and productiveberingin see barana’bezoar stones stones originating from a pre-historic time that look like

arrowheadsbosi tuo an ill person cannot die because incantations were administered;

the body decays but the spirit does not leave itbombo spirit of a dead person travelling to the land of the deadbonga water buffalo with a white spotted headbonga tengnge’ water buffalo with a complete white headbubungan the roof ridge of a traditional adat housebuku lampa upper left hind leg of a pig, offered to a new-born boy and to the

bridegroom in the marriage ceremonial. See also diangka’buku siruk upper left front leg of a pig, offered a new-born girl and to the

bride in the marriage ceremonial. See also diangka’bulan liang time of the cleaning of the graves before the beginning of a new

rice seasonbulu londong feather of the cock, headhunting ritual in the Mamasa area

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busso water bowl used in the household where offerings are laid in household ceremonies

dewata deities in the heavens as well as deities on earthdiallun mortuary ritual in which the deceased is wrapped in clothes

and is kept for one to two years before burial takes placediangka’ activity in rituals for marriage and childbirth in which meat

from a slaughtered pig is lifted up to bride, bridegroom, child and ultimately to the ancestors

dibatta litak to strike the soil, used for the rice priest who starts to break the ground in the beginning of the rice growing season

diburakei activity of the priestess toburake to mediate blessings from deities to heal people from illness

dimammangngi’ the giving of a message to the soul of a chicken, or a pig that will be slaughtered, to be delivered to the deities

dipaisungngi offerings made to the deities in the heavens in the last ritual for childbirth

dipalangngan para second ritual for a new-born child in which an offering is put on the rack above the fireplace in the kitchen

dipatadongkon the putting of a deceased in a sitting position clothed in all the finery related to the status in life

dipatama dapo’ ritual in which a new-born is brought in the kitchen with an offering to the gods, dipopentosan pairanna, making a foun-dation of life by offering to the gods in the kitchen

dirapa’i expression for the most complex mortuary ritual in Tana Torajaditampoi dapo’ see tampoan dapo’ditamui ritual in the kitchen for a new-born child to meet the godsditobangngi barang concluding ritual after the completing of the death rituals to

clean the house where the dead body was keptdota ditosan barana’ to base a pledge on the barana’ treedoti most valued water buffalo with black and white spots. This

word is also used for poison, doti pepasandoti pepasan poison that can be send by the winddukun traditional healer who uses herbs, stones, or incantationsficus benyamina see barana’gamaru see kamaru’gandang drum used in rituals for life and deathgayang kollong killing a pig by jabbing a knife in its throatgayang sa’de killing a pig by jabbing a knife in its hearthhadat see tokeada’incantations powerful sayings originating from the gods

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Indische kerk church that started mission work in the Mamasa areaindo’ Robo head of the realm of the deadjin spirit that can give magical powers for instance in power stoneskabupaten governmental district in Indonesiakamaru small drum made with the skin of a python snake used by the priest-

ess toburake; two beads are fastened with short strings at the drumkekebalan invulnerability for the owner of power stoneslalikan three stones in the fire place in the kitchen where offerings are laid in

household ceremonieslali’ the crest of a cock; its blood is used for mangraralalundun long bambo stalk with its leaves stil on it, used for paisung offeringslangi’ heaven in the non religious meaning of the skylembang valley, and also the crew and passengers of a boat, indicating the arrival

of the people in Tana Toraja; it became an expression for a certain arealentong vertical posts that support the adat houselimbong deep water pool, often thought as connection with the world under

the earth and even with the world above the earthlino yolo the primordial worldlombon kitchen in the rear part of a traditional adat houselonga front part of the high uprising roof of an adat house, supported by a

big post, the penulaklongkarrin horizontal posts on which rest the vertical supporting posts of the

most simple traditional houseluba’ba front-porch under the longa of a traditional adat housema’bua big thanksgiving ritualma’dondi ritual performed in the rice fields at the time of tumorak by women

who beckon men to join themmalaikat soul of a slaughtered animal that can bring prayers to the godsmalangngi’ thanksgiving ritual for womenma’losokan the giving of a set of used clothes as requirement to receive a power

stone or incantationmana’ propertymamase love, word used for the fertile Mamasa valley when the first settlers

enteredmambubung ritual of putting in place the last part of the roof ridge of a traditional

adat house. See tomambubungmangngaro thanksgiving feast after the rice harvest in which bones of the dead

are wrapped againmangrara the smearing of blood, mostly from the crest of a cock, for instance

on a power stone so that it stays alive

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mangrara pare sprinkling the rice seeds with blood, ritual in which blessings are asked from the ancestral spirits for the growing of the rice

mangriu’ batu see mebatumanik riri’ yellow bead, together with a piece of iron a yellow bead is put

into a hole in which a stone will be erected in the simbuang ritual

mantara’ expression used for people who in a courageous way get hold of magical stones

manuk chickenmassalu deliberation of traditional leaders to find a reason for illness or

a calamitymassimburu’ the blowing over water in which a power stone is put while stir-

ring it with a sharp knifemassuba’ see tomassuba’ma’tambuli the digging of a hole to erect a stone in mortuary ritualsmebatu ritual of the dragging of stones from the wilderness which will

be erected as part of mortuary rituals for a noble deceasedmediators spiritual powers that may transfer or effectuate certain

goalsmekolong ritual in Mamasa which separates between mortuary rituals

and rituals for lifemembali dewata transforming into a deity, used for a deceased who is believed to

become an ancestral deitymepairan the religious responsibility that people experience for their

family and for the society; offerings are given to the gods to request their blessings

mepa’tomaroi to act in such a way as if the gods are stupidMittler see mediatorsnapaisungi make a connection with the ancestral deities’, summit of the

rituals in regard to childbirthnapatama dapo’ entering the kitchen’, second ritual in regard to childbirthnapalangngan para placing upon the rack above the hearth’, third ritual in regard to

childbirthpa’bannetauan rituals for marriage and childbirthpa’bisuan female ritual in Mamasa lead by the priestess toburake in which

women merge with deities of the wildernesspa’pararukan meeting place outside the village for elders and fighters coming

back from a headhunting raidpa’tomatean mortuary ritualspa’totiboyongan rituals performed in regard to the cultivation of rice

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pairan the individual religion, centred in the kitchen at the lalikan in the fireplace

pairan batang responsibility for oneself expressed by following the will of the gods

pairan kale see pairan batangpairanna banua the religious aspects of the building of a new traditional

housepairan totiboyongan responsibility that is experienced by the rice priest

in following the will of the gods and requesting their blessings by way of offerings

paisung offering related to the ancestral deitiespallulukan ritual of the blackening of the clothes performed on the

second day after the funeralpanda the quiet period during the rice growing season in which

many restrictions must be observedpangkiki’ small pieces of a slaughtered animal as an offering for the

gods of the earthpangngae expression used in the pus area to the west of the Mamasa

area for the headhunting ritualpangngala’ the uninhabited wildernesspangngan betel chew made of fruit of the betel tree, pinang, sirih

leaves, chalk and a sort of red wood, pela’anpangngukusan rupa tau childbirth ritualspantarasan see mantara’pantunuan offering place just outside the village, also called ranteparang short Toraja machetepare liang rice growing on a grave as a gift from the godspara-para rack for wood above the fire place in the kitchenparengnge’ official belonging to the highest nobility used by the Dutch

government to rule the peoplepasserekan ritual performed three days after a funeral in which all the

offerings are counted and presented to the spirit of the deceased

pela’an red bark of a tree, used for betel chewspeleko curved wooden digging board with a tip strengthened with

iron, used in Mamasa to prepare the rice fieldspelelen horizontal girders that are put through the vertical posts,

lentong, that support the adat housepemali prohibitions and commands in regard to the adat rulespenawa respiration, indicating that body and soul of a person are

still connected

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penulak front post of a traditional adat housepetuo central post in the traditional Toraja house carrying the roof and

place for the gods to enter the houseperembasan hitting of a chicken to death against the stairs of the house of a

deceased person. The spirit of the chicken will announce the death to the gods in the heavens

pinang sort of fruit used in betel chewspindan small porcelain saucer used by the priestess toburake as a musical

instrumentpiso knifepollondong expression in the Mamasa region for the realm of the dead in the

southpontolonga’ bracelet with extraordinary powerspoppok the spirit of a woman who ‘flies out’ in the nightpottiana’ see tabelutto’puang leaders descendent on the tomanurun who came from the

heavenspuang matua the old master, indicating the highest deitypuya realm of the dead south of Tana Torajarakki rattan plate to offer meat to the ancestors and other deities of the

heavensrambu solo’ the smoke descends, rituals in regard to death; no offerings are

made in the kitchen of the houserambu tuka’ the smoke ascends, rituals in regard to life; offerings are made in

the kitchen of the houserante offering place just outside the village, also called the pantunuanrara matassak pure blood, said of somebody of the highest nobilityrante bai power stone that is taken from a wild pigsalibuding spirit that can give power stonessalu makkatibe’ river to be crossed from the world of the living to the world of the

deadsameragading spirit that can give power stonessassang skirt made from beads, used by women in traditional dances and

also by men as part of their outfit for head-hunting raidsshaman see dukunsimbuang the tying of buffaloes to wooden poles, simbuang kayu, or stones,

simbuang batu, in mortuary ritualssinggi banua eulogy exclaimed by the tomambubung while walking and

running three times over the roof-ridge of a just built adat house

sipa’gau see batu punti

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so’bok priest or priestess officiating in rituals in regard to the cultivation of rice

somba one or more buffaloes given to the family of the bride in the wedding ritual ma’somba

sondong see tambingsunga’ energy of life or vitality of a person that unites with the ancestral

deitiessuntik injectionsura’ woodcarving designs in the walls of traditional Toraja houses; also

used for a shawl as attribute of the priestess toburaketabelutto’ the spirit of a woman who died during childbirth; see pottiana’tallu rara offering that consists of the slaughtering of three different types of

animals, a pig, a chicken and a dogtambing sleeping room in a traditional adat housetambolang big flute made of bamboo used in the headhunting ritual; the word

can also indicate a big black and white birdtampoan dapo’ covering a new fireplace in a kitchen with sand and clay. A pig is

slaughtered to sanctify this central place in the house for pairan, the religious activities

tandilo instrument for making musictandi rapasan most important buffalo in mortuary rituals representing the

deceasedtatakan herbs, objects or actions to cause certain goalstedong Toraja word for water buffalotedong-tedong burial house with coffins in the shape of water buffaloesthunderstones power stones found after a lightning hits a treetimbu water source where offerings are laid, especially in household

ceremoniestiup-tiup the blowing of power words to somebody, usually to effectuate

something badtobanni dwarfstoburake priestess in rituals for lifetokeada’ a noble man performing as traditional leader in a communitytoma’gandang men who beat the drums in rituals for life lead by the priestess

toburaketomambubung a man of high nobility who puts in place the front part of the roof

ridge, whereupon he walks three times over the ridge while calling out an eulogy about the adat house of which the building process has been concluded. He is clad with a sassang, babu’, tora-tora and a wokon

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tomanarang man of high nobility who conducts the process of building an adat house together with the religious requirements

tomanurun early immigrants in the Toraja area dominating the original population; the expression got a religious meaning indicating men coming from the heavens

tomassuba’ see so’boktomebalun priest of the lowest class who wraps dead bodiestomekambi’ he who herds, name of a deity in Mamasatomemana he who provides property, name of a deity in Mamasatomeolaan he who shows the way, name of a deity in Mamasatometampa the smith, name of a creator deity in Mamasatominaa priest in Tana Torajatongkonan big traditional adat house, mostly decorated with intricate wood

carving as centre of a noble family in Tana Toraja. In Mamasa the house is usually called banua ada’

topetoe piso he is the ‘man who holds the knife’, who slaughters animals for the gods while uttering prayers. See dimammangngi

tora-tora necklace with tusks from wild boars, used by men in headhunting raids

toso’bok see so’boktotiboyong the one who controls an area, name for the female rice deitytotumampa see tometampatuan tanah lord of the land, in the Toraja language: puana litak. They are the

deities of the wilderness who own the uncultivated earth.tumorak activity of the thinning out of the rice fieldsumbatta’ litak to break the ground, expression for the task of the rice priest to

start the rice cultivation seasonungkulai pairan to warm up the soul of the house, ritual performed after a house

was deserted for long timeuntammui ana’ the welcoming of a child, first ritual in regard to childbirthwalli spirit that can give power stoneswest the west side of a house is the side of the death ritualswilderness the inhabited area, mostly woods, place of the gods of the earthzielestof expression of Albert C. Kruyt indicating the power of lifewokon also called okon. Helmet made from fine rattan, used in headhunt-

ing raids

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Bibliography

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Index

ada’ mate 74adat rules 24–25, 35–36, 69–70, 73, 95, 104ada’ tuo 74alang 69, 112alla ta’ alla 60–61, 110, 114, 125, 127, 129aluk vii, viii, ix, 1, 167, 18, 19, 20, 22, 26, 43,

46, 68, 73, 74, 75, 84, 87, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 107, 109, 122, 126, 131

alukta 1, 167aluk to yolo 16ana’ malayu 69asi-asi 74

ba’ba 50babu’ 51badong 55balinna uai 69balo’-balo’ viii, 1, 101–103, 118, 136, 137bangsawan 47, 51bangun-bangun 102, 120–128, 130–131banua bolong 57banua layuk 50, 57banua longkarrin 56banua rapa’ 57banua sussu’ 57, 58barana’ tree 112, 132Bare’e Toraja’s 16basa siraun 128bassi galling 116–117batana kemalasan 29batana pairan 70, 73Batarirak 4, 19, 32, 44, 86, 89, 93, 126batu galling 135batu gaun 109–110, 112batu la ulung 112batu lila 118batu pare 112, 134batu punti 115–116, 135, 148, 153batu tedong 112, 134bezoar stones 111bones of the earth 39–41bonga 81Bongga Barana’ vii, 3, 44, 94Bongga di Rano 39–40Bongga Muane 39–40

bosi tuo 124bubungan 51, 54buku lampa 65buku siruk 65bulan liang 91bulu londong 20, 84, 86, 90bulung pare 77burial house viii, 105–107, 133busso viii, 30, 46, 59buta 68

cat 135Christian church 2, 17, 19–20, 84, 92–97,

99, 101collective representation 10–11, 14cultivation of rice 19, 23–24, 74–75, 84, 90

dau’ kailui aka-akanna padamu 71dau’ massira’ menono’ 71dau’ massira’ tekke 71dewata viii, 26–27, 29, 31, 56–57, 59, 63,

69–70, 72–73, 75, 86, 89–92, 94, 110, 112, 122, 136

dewata lino 28diangka’ 65diborongngi tallu manuk 67dikula’-kula’i pairanna 63dimammangngi 27, 48–49, 149dimamum 72dipaisungngi 64dipalangngan para 64dipande dewata 56dipasule tama randanna buku rara 74dipatadongkon vii, 17dipatama dapo’ 29, 62, 64, 107, 131dipokko tama lino 62dipopakaleppe manuk 74dipopengnganda’ pairan 64dipopento’ pairanna 62dipopentosan pairanna 68–69dirapa’i 36ditampoi dapo’ 67ditamui 29ditobangngi barang vii, 23, 32, 61doti 81–83, 110, 149

161Index

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doti langi’ 81dukun 110

effectiveness at a distance 10embe’ 136emic viewpoint 7ethnocentrism 8

false money 11–12fireplace vii, viii, 2–4, 29–30, 32–33, 45, 57,

59, 62–64, 67, 93–94, 107, 131founders principle 36

gandang viii, 89Gereja Toraja Mamasa 17, 92

headhunting 19, 84, 86–87, 89, 127headhunting raid 87headhunting ritual 90

incantations 12, 13, 14, 15, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103–104, 110, 115, 117, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 135, 136

indana tibollo 87indana tise’bo’ 87Indische Kerk 92indo’ Robo 105, 135induknya keluarga 45

jin 114jiwa keluarga 46

kabupaten 92kamaru vii, 23–24, 32katapi ix, 109keka’basan 1kekebalan 1kitchen vii, 2, 3, 4, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 44, 45,

46, 53, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 67, 70–71, 73, 74, 77, 78, 87, 94, 97, 99, 103–104, 107, 131, 132, 140, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153

lalikan viii, ix, 29, 31–32, 45–46, 57, 59–64, 67, 74, 104, 107–108, 131

lali’na 132lalundun 56laso kila’ 112lembang 73lentong 49

lila 119lino yolo 104lombon 50, 150longa 33, 50–51, 56–57longkarrin 56luba’ba 50

ma’bua 36ma’dondi viii, 24, 84–86, 91magic 7, 10, 11–12, 14, 15, 122, 159, 2magical acts 6, 12, 139magical medicine 119makaka 66Makkatibe 105malaikat 27, 34, 78malangngi’ 19malillin panda 77ma’losokan 122, 132mambubung 51mammangngi 78mangngaro 91mangrara 115–116, 133manik riri’ 37mantara’ 103, 114–115, 118, 120, 136manuk 74marendeng 29, 66masakke 29, 56, 66massalu 69, 94, 151massimburu’ 130mate sese 68mebatu 38, 40mediators 12–14, 136mekolong 23, 32, 61membali dewata 35, 75membali puang 33mepairan 72mepairanna totiboyong 74mepa’tomaroi dewata 70mero’o 71Mittler 13mythical force 10

nobility vii, viii, 17, 36–38, 40–41, 75–76, 84, 100

pa’bisuan 20, 87, 112pairan viii, ix, 5, 42–44, 53, 58–59, 61–62, 67,

70, 72–74, 77, 86–87, 90–99, 107–108, 139pairan batang 70–71, 73

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162 Index

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pairan batang kale 70, 72pairan lembang 73pairanna banua 46, 51–52pairan tedong 80, 82–83pairan to mate 71–72pairan totiboyongan 90paisung vii, 28–32, 34–35, 46, 48, 57, 59, 64,

67–69pamole 110panda 77, 91, 152pangkiki’ 29–32, 34–35, 46, 48, 57, 59,

67–69, 99pangngukusan rituals 94pangngukusan rupa tau 64, 68–70pantarasan 114–116pantunuan 37–38para viii, 59parang 125para-para 64pare liang 106parengnge 84passerekan 33–34pela’an 77peleko viii, 75–76pelelen 49, 56pemali 25, 70–72, 87pembabasan 25penulak 51, 53, 57, 153perembasan 25petuo 54–56, 147, 153pindan vii, 23, 32podo kao 95Polewali 1, 16pollondong 31, 105Pongka Padang 36pontolongga’ 112poppok 114pottiana’ spirit 114powers of blessing 26, 41, 44, 58, 62, 74, 86,

90, 95, 97, 99, 108primordial time 103–104Puang Matua 35pullaijat ritual 8

rakki 30Rambu Saratu 22, 70rambu solo’ 4, 29, 31–33, 61, 91rambu tuka’ 4, 31–33, 91, 93

Rampen Manik 120randan batana 44rante bai 119rara matassak 51rinding tedong 28

Sa’dan Toraja 36, 69, 158salibuding 114sameragading 114sassang 51simbuang 37–38, 41singgi banua 51sipa’gan 115stones and incantations 5, 15, 99–102, 126,

135, 139stones in the fireplace 3stones of the world 39–40suntik 110supernatural 7symbol 13, 38, 63, 67, 136

tado’ 50tae’ umpepairanan kalena 88tallu rara 28, 48, 51, 154tambing 50, 154tambolang 89Tana Toraja 1, 169, 20, 21tandi rapasan 37tangent place of the world of the gods

103, 107tatakan 99, 103–104, 105, 136tattasan 68tedong viii, 78–80, 105–107, 112, 148, 154tedong doti 81–82tedong-tedong viii, 54–55, 105–107thunderstones’ 111tiang raja 54timbu 30, 46, 59tiup-tiup 130tobanni 115toburake vii, 22–23, 26–27, 32tokeada’ vii, 21–22, 69, 73tokke’ dipamarra’ pairan 87tomambubung 51–52tomanarang 48–49, 51tomanurun 21, 24–26, 35–36, 38, 73, 75,

104, 120, 131, 135tomassuba 24, 74, 151, 155

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163Index

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tomebalun vii, 24–25, 69, 71ToMemana’ 62, 107ToMeolaan 62, 107, 131tomepairan 69ToMetampa 62, 78, 107, 125, 131tominaa 22topetoe piso 48, 51tora-tora 51Toraja’s 16Torijene 36toso’bok vii, viii, 21–24, 69, 74, 76, 77, 78, 80,

90–92, 145, 146ToTiboyong 74, 79, 90, 112, 134Tuan tanah 46tula’-tula’ dipilei 71tumorak 24, 85

ummampa daun punti 61ummanda’ pairan 87ungkula’i pairan 60, 74

vestiges 99

walli 114water buffalo vii, viii, 19–20, 28–29,

38, 73, 79–80, 93, 105, 106, 110, 112, 119, 134, 149, 154

west 16, 38, 107wilderness 7, 22, 23, 26, 27, 37–38, 41, 42, 87,

119, 158wokon 51

zielestof 132

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