A. Londa Cave
Traveling to Tana Toraja is not complete if you haven’t visited Londa Cave because the burial area in the caves and cliffs is one of the unique tourist attraction that is hard to find in any other place.
Londa is a natural cave used as a cemetery. The cave is located in the village Sa’dan Uai, Sanggalangi District, about 15 kilometers from thecenter of Makale.For Toraja people, Londa Cave is sacred. Even so, the cemetery which maintained by family foundation is open to anyone. Visitors are required to comply with certain traditional rules while in the place. One of ‘em is not allowed to move, let alone take, the skulls scattered in the corners of the cave (But seriously, would you?).
Around the door of the cave, it seemed tens, even hundreds, of an old coffins and skulls and bones of humans who had been buried in that place. Coffins are stuffed in the corners of the cliff some are even hanged.Some sculptures are also made for the buried bodies that resembles the corpse’s face. The sculptures are equipped with fashion, clothes and gloves, which are adjusted by gender of the corpse. The sculpture is called‘tau-tau’.The cemetery consists of three levels. The first level is located in the cave and the base of the cliff. The secondlevel is in the middle of the cliff and the third level on top of the steep cliff with a height of about 200 meters.
This level is adjusted to the social status of people who will be buried. One who is buried at the base of cliffs and caves are one with mediocre social status. The middle for the middle social status, while one was buried on top of the cliff is a group of nobles and kings.The sculpture or tau-tau was reserved only for nobles.
B. Stone cemetery Lemo
Lemo Stone graves located in Toraja, South Sulawesi, is the second oldest cemetery in Toraja after Songgi Patalo.On the site that was built around the 16th century, there are approximately 75 and 40 grave statues of people who have died.
Each hole is a family cemetery. That location is one of the Toraja tourist attraction visited by many tourists, both foreign and local.Graves made in the rock Lemo named because its shape resembles a round lime (citrus). When viewed from the outside, would only appear to the door that closed the hole with wooden planks.
The location of these holes is quite high, reaching tens of meters. Bodies inserted into or withdrawn with a rope ladder.
Each hole is a family cemetery. That location is one of the Toraja tourist attraction visited by many tourists, both foreign and local.Graves made in the rock Lemo named because its shape resembles a round lime (citrus). When viewed from the outside, would only appear to the door that closed the hole with wooden planks.
The location of these holes is quite high, reaching tens of meters. Bodies inserted into or withdrawn with a rope ladder.
C. Kambira - Baby Graveyard
Kambira is a village, south-east of Rantepao that is home to one of the biggest baby grave sites in Tana Toraja. I was told the baby grave site in Kambira houses up to 20 baby graves...in a tree.The Torajan's bury deceased babies in a tree, each village is generally home to a baby grave tree, which serves as the grave site for the babies from that particular village.I was curious what the Torajan's classified as a baby...apparently one that has not as yet grown teeth. In Kambira the babies are buried inside a very big, old tree in a bamboo forest in the village. It was cool and dark, the sun's rays shadowed by the huge bamboo.
This is a very old custom in Tana Toraja and still relates to the animism beliefs of the local people. The babies bodies are placed standing upright inside the tree - as local people believe that (or hope that) the babies will grow inside the tree.
They cut a hole into the tree to place the babies inside and then place a woven like door over the top of the hole to cover it. The doors are made of bark and twigs from a palm tree and have different numbers of wooden nails or pegs with rope woven around them. The number of wooden nails/pegs differs depending on the caste of the family. The ones that I saw, mostly had four wooden nails, meaning they were of average status within this particular village. One's that have six are of a higherstatus.
Apparently the holes in the tree, eventually close-up by themselves and then the little woven door is not needed anymore and eventually rots and falls off the tree...leaving the sealed-up hole visable...I could see where some holes had closed up. Because of this, it made it very difficult to actually count how many babies had been buried in this tree, as some holes had completely closed and it was difficult to distinguish them compared to natural lines and marks in the old tree.I felt sad thinking about all the babies buried inside that lone tree.
Apparently the holes in the tree, eventually close-up by themselves and then the little woven door is not needed anymore and eventually rots and falls off the tree...leaving the sealed-up hole visable...I could see where some holes had closed up. Because of this, it made it very difficult to actually count how many babies had been buried in this tree, as some holes had completely closed and it was difficult to distinguish them compared to natural lines and marks in the old tree.I felt sad thinking about all the babies buried inside that lone tree.
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