The Toraja people, who live on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, have a rather unique way of honouring dead family members. As part of a ritual called Ma’nene, they dig them up, clean their bodies, dress them in new clothes, pose for pictures with them and then re-bury them. By showing their dead relatives that they still love and care for them, they hope to be blessed with a good harvest the following year.

First, people open up their family tombs and bring out the coffins of their ancestors. Then, they take out the bodies.


Next, they clean the bodies and remove dust and any mould that has grown. If the bodies still have hair left, then they fix it up. [Editor’s note: Some families give their ancestors cigarettes and spritz them with perfume]. They talk to the bodies as if they were still alive.


They also put the bodies out in the sun to help them dry out. This helps to preserve them. Then, they dress them up in new clothes before putting them back in their tombs.


Sometimes, people dig up relatives who died up to 30 years earlier. Their bodies are relatively well preserved.

“It’s not surprising that a lot of the bodies that you see unearthed are well-preserved because preservation of bodies is an important element of Toraja death rituals, whether the family plans to practice Ma’nene or not.


In the Toraja community, funerals are both extremely important and extremely expensive. Like weddings, they can cost millions or even billions of rupiahs. It can take time for families to save up that kind of money. If they don’t have enough, people just keep the bodies at home with them until they have the money to bury them. So, sometimes, deceased people in the Toraja community aren’t buried for several years after they die.


Traditionally, people have used herbs to preserve the bodies. Nowadays, however, they tend to inject the bodies with a formaldehyde solution even though that actually doesn’t preserve them as well.


No one really knows the exact origins of the Ma’nene ritual, but people have practiced it for a very long time. Toraja people use this ritual to show their deceased relatives that they love and respect them. They hope that this will please the ancestors, who will bless them with a good harvest the following year.
That is why this ritual usually takes place in August, which is just after the harvest and just before the planting for the following year, even though families are free to organise a Ma’nene ceremony whenever they want.

That said, many Torajas don’t perform this ritual anymore or, if they do, they do it every once in awhile but not yearly. With the spread of Christianity in the region, the practice has faded.

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