In the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi, there is a tribe called Torajan. Every year they carry out an eerie rite, during which they pull out the corpses of their dead relatives from the coffins.
According to the Toraja, relations between relatives do not end after the death of a family member, but continue after death. The Torajs keep the bodies of their deceased relatives at home for a very long time before burying them in a coffin. But even there, the corpses do not lie long. Once a year, they are taken out and dressed up for an important holiday - Harvest Day.
Dry mummies can even have their hair styled or "treat" them with a cigarette, and then go with them on a ritual procession, which is dubbed "the walk of the dead."
Martin Labi in the photo below poses with his late mother Johana Liling, He is styling her hair. The mother died back in 1997 and her body was turned into a mummy using formaldehyde. Most bodies after death are specially treated with formaldehyde, so in the photo they look like mummies, and not decaying corpses.
Photo: Caters News Agency
And in this photo is the body of a woman named Rapong, who died in 1990. He is carried along the street of the village of Panggal.
Photo: Caters News Agency
When Toraja's relatives die, they keep their bodies at home for weeks, months or even several years. All this time, the relative is not called dead, but is considered sick.
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Photo: Caters News Agency
During the holiday and the walk of the dead, people rejoice and take joint selfies with corpses.
No one knows exactly where this strange custom came from; there are only a few oral legends on this score. The Toraja script began to be used only a little over a hundred years ago.
Today, old customs have mixed with Christian rites, and during the exhumation from coffins and "walking" of the dead, Christian prayers are often heard.
After the body has been in the house for some time and has dried, it is placed in a niche in a cave or in a coffin suspended from a rock so that the body can be easily removed if necessary. After the body is removed from the coffin to participate in the procession, it is allowed to lie down in the sun for some time to dry it out.
Both the mummies of deceased adults and the small bodies of children "take part" in the procession.
Toraji are sure that the walk of the dead at the harvest festival is a blessing from the departed ancestors, so that the future harvest will be plentiful. It's also their way of showing the dead a share of respect.
“This is our way of respecting the dead,” says a local resident. “We do not have mourning, and such moments are a joy for us, because today we are reunited with our relatives again.
After walking the dead, the inhabitants arrange another ritual ceremony - they sacrifice buffaloes or pigs so that the spirits of relatives return safely to heaven.
