DISCOVERY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
The long good
bye
One culture’s unique rituals for the dead have a lot to teach
us about life BY ANNA GAYNOR
It’s hard not to be sensational when describing Kathleen Adams’s research. For the past 30 years, this anthropology professor has been studying a small Indonesian com- munity, Toraja, which has become something of a tourist destina- tion for the adventurous. Visitors, however, aren’t just coming to see its stunning limestone cliffs or rich art traditions—but rather its unique rituals honoring the dead. A Toraja funeral can last days, host
thousands of visitors, include effigies of the dead, feature water buffalo fights and sacrifices, and some- times require mile-long processions through a village. “It’s not that they subscribe to a vastly different reli- gious worldview,” Adams says. “That kind of relationship and familiarity with the realm of death, I think, really
A carved effigy of a woman is placed next to one of her husband outside the tomb containing her coffin during a traditional Toraja funeral.
26 LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO
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