Hanging Coffins Found At The Tana Toraja In Indonesia

Hanging coffins in Indonesia
Hanging coffins can be found at the Tana Toraja in Indonesia. The Tana Toraja is a regency of South Sulawesi province of Indonesia. It is a mountainous region where an indigenous ethnic group known as the Torajans lives.
According to April Holloway, (2014), For Toraja people, life revolves around death, but not in a melancholic sense.
Torajan tribes have a strong belief in the afterlife. There have several burial practices around Tana Toraja and one of them is hanging coffins. Coffins are arranged dangling from the cliff and will stay there until it rot and fall to the ground.
As claimed by Robertb Schrader in his blog, the rich Torajans might place two bodies to a single coffin while some group of the poor

Unmarried man will have a wooden craft buffalo placed just beside its coffin and for unmarried woman will have wooden craft pig just beside its coffin. In the modern days, the common Torajan people use flat top coffins whereas the higher social rank will use round top coffins. If a family can afford it, they may have a tau tau or effigy. Tau tau or effigy is a wooden doll that placed at the balcony that craved into the solid rock and used to represent the deceased. This tau tau will have the same outfit as the deceased and is to represent the deceased. It is often placed at the balcony of the tomb to look over the grave site and to protect the

When a Torajan dies, his or her family members need to hold a series of funeral ceremonies, known as the Rambu Solog, which last for several days. It is costly to have the series of funeral ceremonies therefore the bodies will be preserved and kept in the traditional house with his or her family. During this process, the person is not consider dead but just merely asleep or suffering an illness. The body of deceased will be kept for several years. This depends on the time it takes for the family to raise money. After the family raises enough money, they could hold the ceremonies. When all the funeral visitors attend at the buffalo-slaughtering field, the Rambu Soloq begins. During these ceremonies, the family members will slaughter buffaloes because they belief that the spirit of the dead will live peacefully subsequently. At the eleventh day of the funeral ceremonies, the coffin with the dead will be carry all the way to the top of cliff. By using ropes, the coffin will be lowered down from the top of the cliff to where the coffin should be placed. Higher social class will be place higher which they believed to be closer to heaven. Then, a wood-craved effigy called tau tau, which is carved with the similarity of the dead person will be placed in the balcony of the tomb (April Holloway,