When the dead are welcome to overstay

Though life comes with an expiry date, in cultures around the world, the relationship between the living and the dead is a complex one — marked by grief, fear, stoicism and even celebrations. The BBC's upcoming documentary Our World: Living with the Dead is a fascinating exploration into a little-known aspect of Indonesia, where an ethnic group follows centuries old customs to make the dead a constant “presence” in their everyday life.

The Torajas, an ethnic indigenous population of the Toraja region, in the south of centre of the island of Sulawesi, embalm the bodies of their loved ones and keep them at home for months, sometimes for years. They treat the corpse as if it was sick, plying it with food, coffee and cigarettes. They believe that the spirit of the deceased is watching over them, prompting them to hold conversations with the cadaver.

Burial happens once they have come to terms with the sense of loss. At the heart of the elaborate set of rituals preceding the burial, is animal sacrifice — the slaughtering of buffaloes and pigs. The buffaloes, according to this animist tradition, is the carrier of deceased souls into the afterlife. The wealthier the person, the grander the rituals, which may last for a week.

The film took Sahar Zand, the BBC presenter, to villages scattered around Rantepao, the capital town of Toraja. “Initially, they would use herbs and leaves to preserve the body, but now they use a chemical called formalin to stem the rot, and the odour is a mixture of musk and chemicals,” she says in the documentary.

The Torojans consider the caves in the nearby mountains ideal as the final resting place for their loved ones. But that's not the end of the story. After every couple of years, they exhume the dead in what is called Ma'nene. There is a chanting of hymns and once again there is no escaping animal sacrifice. The other interesting aspect is immortalising the dead with a wooden statue draped in the deceased's favourite clothes. A statue can cost as much as $1000. That explains why the Torojans, primarily an agrarian community, steer clear of a luxurious life so that they can save enough for a smooth passage into the other world. “The families I filmed are all wealthy,” says Sahar. “Most people in this region are farmers with an annual income of $5000. They would find it hard to afford this extravaganza.”

This extreme fixation with the dead, if we may call it, has survived because Toraja is one of the most untouched parts of Indonesia. Even when the Dutch missionaries arrived here in 1960s and converted people to Christianity, Torojans held on to this aspect of their belief-system because, as Sahar explains, “their entire culture evolved around death, and once you take that away from them, they believe their identity will be taken away from them, so they really clung onto this".

There are other reasons as well, which bring the diaspora into the picture. “There are many Torajans living outside Indonesia and they travel from around the world to be a part of these ceremonies. That explains why the burial takes a long time to happen, giving people enough time to gather from around the world or other parts of the country... the entire extended family should be present.”

These animist traditions may not last for long though. As the documentary shows, almost every house has a cross and churches are everywhere. People are now trying to slowly sanitise these traditions. It emphasises a gradual slant in the belief system towards Christianity.

(Our World: Living with the Dead is scheduled to air on BBC World News on Saturday 22nd April at 5pm and 10pm, and on Sunday 23rd April at 10am.)