New Philosopher – July 2019

NewPhilosopher

Torajan attitude to death might be a

more authentic way of living with the

dead than the western approach. Or

at least the recent western approach.

Death masks and sketching the new-

ly dead were once common ways of

remembering the faces of those who

were lost to the living. The Victorians

posed for photographs with corpses

• often the only image the family
  would have of the deceased. At the
  start of the last century, most west-
  erners died at home. By the 1960s
  however, most died in hospitals. The

For the Toraja people of South
Sulawesi in Indonesia, death is a very
drawn-out affair. When a Torajan
heart stops beating, their loved ones
do not speak of them as dead – not
yet. Rather, they are to’makula, ‘a sick
person’, from the point of biologi-
cal death through to their burial in
a cave. Torajan funerals are elabo-
rate and expensive, so that could be
months or even years away. Until
then, the to’makula lays embalmed
in their house. Even once buried, the
dead keep coming back. Every Au-
gust the Toraja have a festival called
ma’nene, where the dead are removed
from their tombs, re-dressed, cleaned,
even have their make-up re-done. The
living walk the dead around their vil-
lage, give them cigarettes, and take
selfies with them. The dead are then
reinterred with new grave gifts, such
as mobile phones.
To ‘western’ eyes, ma’nene may
look gruesome. But in one sense, the

A way

of death

News from nowhere

The Four Pommel Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

“Dear Phoebus, go now

and carry Sarpedon

out of range of the

battle, and cleanse

the black blood from

his body, then lift him

to some distant place,

bathe him in running

water, anoint him with

ambrosia, clothe him in

imperishable garments,

and give him to those

twin brothers Sleep and

Death, who bear men

swiftly away.”

Zeus to Apollo,

in Homer’s Iliad

Photo: Tana Toraja, Lemo, tau taus, by Adrian Zwegers

process of death and the newly dead

were quarantined, kept out of sight as

much as possible.

Perhaps the Toraja understand

what the Victorians did, but we’ve

forgotten: that while we do have to

let the dead go, we shouldn’t shy away

from the reality of the process and of

what they, and we, ultimately become.