ian and sharon

Effigies for the dead are placed outside the mausoleum or cave.

The bottom of the rice barns, used for enetertaining, eating, picnicing, which we did, and also for just sitting and contemplating life!!

Note the buffalo horns on the front of the house. It is a marker of family members who have died in that house. This is known as "The Culture of Death". The dead body may be preserved and live with the family for up to about 10 years. This is done because the whole clan must agree how to bury the body. It is a really expensive cermony involving many rituals and until there is enough money( the unit of exchange is buffalo), the body must be kept in the house. They spend more time caring for the dead and the funerals in this culture, that not enough money or time is spent taking care of the living. Jonathan sees that this is what he and his family want to bring to this culture - to transform it, not change important parts of the culture that don't matter in Christianity, but to avoid wastefulness and excessive caring for the dead, instead of being productive and taking care of the living.

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It is a VERY,very complicated system and time does not permit me to say more now, but I am having to write an article about it, so I don't mind publishing it later for those who may be interested.

One of the houses in his family village in Toraja, now a National Heritage site.

Jonathan and all of us visiting his family grave yard up in the limestone cliffs - 9 generations of the Parapak family are buried above us in this place