Toraja Hanging Graves · Family on the Cliff

The Toraja treat the dead as patients: the body stays in the house for weeks or years, until the family can afford the funeral. Coffins hang from the cliff faces, and beside them stand carved wooden effigies, the tau-tau, watching the village on the dead person’s behalf.

Babies who die are placed inside tree trunks, and the tree grows until it seals the opening.

Their best-known line is that the dead must come home. So every few years the ma’nene ritual takes the coffins down, changes the clothing and combs the hair — and while the family is present, no one may speak the dead person’s name.

Occult Chronicles / Sulawesi · Indonesia / Time immemorial