Macabre. Barbaric. Gruesome. These were all words that came to mind as I started into an article on a strange tradition of tending to the dead. In the Guardian piece entitled Cleaning the Dead: the afterlife rituals of the Torajan People I discovered that they continue to care for and clean members of their family as though they were sick, sometimes for years after their deaths. I found the article on my phone and I was stunned when I realized that the photos were of the dead.
For the Torajan people of Indonesia, death is part of a spiritual journey: families keep the mummified remains of their deceased relatives in their homes for years – and traditionally invite them to join for lunch on a daily basis – before they are eventually buried. Even then, they are regularly exhumed to be cleaned and cared for.
In contrast to Western norms, Torajans people, who live in the mountains of Sulawesi in Indonesia, treat their beloved relatives as if they are sick –not dead... In Toraja, it’ is customary to feed the deceased every day and to keep the corpses cozily bedded in a separate room of the family house until the family can afford a proper funeral.
I was appalled by the image of a child alongside the bodies of dead grandparents. Surely these children will be scarred for life?
While I'm never going to come around on these practices, they did get me thinking about our antiseptic, death-denying burial practices in North America. Our deceased loved ones are whisked away, embalmed and covered in makeup. Children are often kept away from funerals out of concern for their emotional wellbeing. Many services now do not address the realities of grief and when we go to cemeteries the artificial grass discreetly hides the actual earth into which a casket will descend.
Now that you've dealt with the shock, what is your take on this? Are we death-deniers in our culture. What is the balance between Western denial and the grim practices of the Torajans?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2017/oct/13/cleaning-the-dead-the-afterlife-rituals-of-the-torajan-people
Wow, I had no idea about that culture and how they view(literally) death. I like their belief about death being a spiritual journey, but feeding them as if they are alive....that is a hard one to fathom.
ReplyDeleteI have been reading a very interesting book lately entitled "7 Lessons From Heaven" in which a surgeon describes the experiences she had when she had "died" for almost 30 minutes. I find it to be uplifting and hopeful.
That said, please don't feed me when I die. Unless it's black forest cake.
Ya, I'd die for black forest cake. Thanks Roger.
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