Toraja tribe

Tana Toraja is a regency in South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia, is one of the major tourist destinations famous for its burial ritual. Located in mountainous area, the region home to the Toraja tribe has a fairly cool climate.

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

Dani people in Indonesia

The word Dani actually refers to about 30 sociocultural groups, or clans, each of which has its own recognized territory and distinct individual identities. They live in small thatched-roof huts and burn wood for heat.

The Dani people traditionally love in self-contained fenced compounds, with its own cooking house, men’s house, women’s house and pigsties.

A traditional house is circular, topped by a thatched dome-shaped roof.

The very first contact between Dani people and outsiders occurred in early 1910. In that year a mountain climbing expedition led by the Dutch explorer H. A Lorenz, tried to climb to the snow –covered to of Peak Trikora.

Peak Trikora lies just within the southern boundary of the Dani Speaking area, and several Dani visited the base camp of the explorers.

The Dani people live in the central Highlands of Irian Jaya, which is the eastern-most province of Indonesia. They are found in the valleys of the upper reaches of two major river systems, the Mamberamo, which flows north-west to the Pacific Ocean.

They are one of the most populous tribes in the highland, and are found spread out through the highlands.

They live simply off the land. Their staple diet consists of sweet potatoes and some meats such as birds, pigs and other small animals.

The Dani remain subsistence farmers who cultivate mostly sweet potatoes in gardens in the Baliem valley in West Papua, Indonesia.

Women continue to raise pigs, which men strategically exchange to promote their status and to strengthens their politically alliance.
Dani people in Indonesia