Torajans probably arrived in Sulawesi around 3,500 years ago as apart of a general Austronesian expansion in Southeast Asia. They are Malay speakers and presently occupy the calcareous and andesitic mountains in the northern part of South Sulawesi.
Toraja society is hierarchically organized on the bases of descent wealths, age and occupation. In pre-colonial times Torajan society was roughly divided into three social strata: the aristocracy commoners, and slaves. Status was determined by birth, although economic aptitude or failure permitted some degree of social mobility.
In the Toraja tribe, the traditions maintained are: homage to the ancestor spirits realized in ceremonials funerary, pottery manufacture, chew betel and rice cultivating.
They still build their houses in the arc-like forms, they say, of the ships which once brought them, and their funeral rites, which for their nobility are unequalled for extravagance, are intended to launch the souls of the dead back to the stars of their origins.
Toraja tribe
