The Walking Corpses - Toraja Village

Paranormal Tales | Popular Scary Stories | One Liners | Places 

Do you believe in ghosts? Do you know what happens when you are not watching…have you ever experienced something strange and unexplainable? In the fast-paced world we live in, we don’t have much time to read thick horror books or watch movies. So there are some one liners that might keep your skin crawling because of how strange and real the events are. Even if normal ghost and ghoul tales didn’t keep you up at night, these may. So here is a one liners that will scare the crap out of you . . .

Life that does't end with death .

Indonesia province's bizarre annual ritual of digging up its dead to give them a wash, groom and dress them in new clothes.  

The ritual is called Ma'nene, or The Ceremony of cleaning corpse, and this takes place in Toraja in South Sulawesi. Families dig up their relatives to freshen them up and even dead children and babies are exhumed. Bodies are then taken to the place where the died, and dragged back to the village.  

According to the ancient Torajan belief system, the spirit of a dead person must return to his village of origin. 

So if a person died on a journey, the family would go to the place of death and accompany the deceased back home by walking them back to the village. In the past, people were frightened to journey far, in case they died while they were away and were unable to return to their village.

The Toraja universe is divided into three parts, each with its own cardinal direction and rites: 1) the underworld, in the southwest, the home of the dead; 2) earth; and 3) the upperworld, to the northeast, the home of deified ancestors. Each is presided over by its own set of gods. Those found on earth sometimes live in particular trees, mountains and other natural objects. There is a fear of werewolves, spirits that fly at night and spirits that eat the stomachs of sleeping people.

According to tradition, the Toraja believe that the dead should be properly sent off to a land called Puya somewhere in the southwest and given enough attention to send them to the upperworld, where defied ancestors live. Most people never make it beyond Puya, where the dead exist a state of being not unlike the life on earth. Those that get lost on the way to Puya and don’t make it may come back and haunt the living so great cares taken to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Death is something that is always on the mind of Toraja but it something that is viewed as journey one prepares for rather tragedy. Toraja parents make every effort to make sure their infants feet don't touch the ground, with the understanding that if the child died young it would ascend to heaven faster. 

The actual “walking” part of the dead appears to happen during the ritual of Ma ‘Nene’ (The Ceremony of Cleaning Corpses). Out of respect for their dead and afterlife, the boxes containing the dead are removed from the tombs (every few years), the corpses are removed from the boxes, and are cleaned and re-dressed. Damaged boxes are fixed or replaced. In videos I have seen the dead seem to be exhibited and paraded around, as if they they were alive.

Positioned on the balconies of the cliffside graves where Toraja are buried are spooky-looking life-size wooden statues called tau taus which are fully clothed and have human hair. Effigies of the deceased who are buried behind them, they are usually carved from jackfruit wood and every effort is made to make sure the physical details resemble those of the deceased.                                                                                                                                                                                                             The custom of making tau taus is thought to have originated in the late 19th century. In the old days they were quite basic and primitive -looking and stylized. Now some are quite realistic looking. The ones made today can be quite elaborate and detailed. They are made with great skill and capture the dead as they liked when the died rather than when they were wee young. Not so many tau taus are visible. In recent years many have been stolen and found there way to the international art market. Today many Toraja keep them in their homes.

The funeral ceremonies usually take place in two parts. The Rambu Solo (the funeral ceremony) and the Rambu Tuka (the procession and burial. The Rambu Solo is a grisly affair in which dozens, sometimes hundreds, of buffalos and pigs are slaughtered in the belief that the spirit of the dead will be accepted by God. The funeral can be held in front of the village tongkonan. Sometimes it takes place in a field, where bamboo platforms have been set up for people to sit with the deceased presiding over the event from a high-roofed tower. Some are held in special funeral sites marked by megaliths.