By an office-holder
Rambu Solo' (season)
Chiefly July to September, set by the family
Not a single date. The time is set by each family according to readiness and the presence of migrants; July–September is a season, not a rule.
Rambu Solo'
Practice Sulawesi Selatan
Vigorous Contested
Other and rejected name forms
A rejected form remains searchable so that older sources stay findable, but it is never used in the prose of an entry.
Rambu Solo'
Primary name
Upacara kematian Toraja
Alternate name
The Toraja mortuary sequence, held months or years after death, whose cost is borne by a network of obligations between tongkonan and whose scale states the standing of the deceased.
The sequence
Before the ceremony the deceased is called to makula', a sick person, and treated as still present in the house. The ceremony itself runs for several days and includes the reception of guests, the slaughter of buffalo and pigs, buffalo fighting in some districts, and the removal of the body to the liang, the rock-cut cliff grave.
The number of buffalo slaughtered is recorded and remembered, since each slaughter is a debt to be answered at the giver's own future ceremony. The ceremony is therefore a financial institution as well as a rite.
Cost and dispute
The scale of the ceremony is debated within Toraja society itself and not only from outside: some clergy and younger families hold that its cost impoverishes, while others hold that reducing the scale severs the network of obligation on which relations between families rest.
Sources 2
In the calendar
Corrections to this entry
Rule change
Regional rule change. Buffalo counts for particular families' ceremonies are no longer recorded; figures are given as ranges with a year and without family names. This applies across all Toraja entries.
Keep reading
People
Toraja
A highland people of South Sulawesi whose customary life turns on the tongkonan house and on two ceremonial poles: rambu tuka',…
Maintained
Belief system
Aluk To Dolo
Jalan leluhur Toraja yang mengatur dua kutub upacara; digolongkan secara resmi sebagai cabang Hindu pada 1969.
Attenuated
Practice
Ma'nene'
The cleaning and re-clothing of ancestral remains, performed periodically in several districts of North Toraja.
Maintained