Indonesia Tourism

You may have heard already about Rambu Solo, a very famous ritual perform in Tana Toraja, South Sulawesi (Indonesia). It is a funeral ritual ceremony to perfect they way of the death to meet their ancestors.

Rambu Solo is based on the Torajan believe that the death of a person is a process for them to meet their ancestors. Before performing the Rambu Solo, the dead person is beleived to be only in a weak condition or sleeping and resting on the bed. That is way the dead is laid down on bed in a particular room, provided with normal living necessities such as foods and drinks near them, before the family is able to fulfill their obligation to do Rambu Solo. The family often speak to the death, too. The dead will not respond verbally, but an emotional communication has taken place.

Of course, during this time the death is already preserved to prevent the body from damaging microorganisms. In the past, this was done traditionally using natural preserving ingredients. With the advance of human knowledge, the preservation is now done using modern substances such as formaldehyde.

Performing the Rambu Solo often takes times. It will be months or even years after the death. This is because Rambu Solo is expensive and require many resources. Only the rich family can do this in sooner times, but for the average ones require long-long time to prepare the Rambu Solo. Whatever the family background, each famly has to do this in the most perfect way because the ritual is a final respect to the death. Failure to do this may be regarded as not respecting their dead family and breaking the traditional custom and believe.

Rambu Solo is marked by the obligation of family to sacrifice a large number of buffalos and pigs. Beside being part of the ritual, sacrificing animals is also to feed family and relatives coming from around and distant places. The number of animals sacrificed varies according to the ability of the family. For the rich family and has a high social status, they usually sacrifice a number of between 24 and 100 of buffalos and a number of pigs. The individual price of the buffalo is around several ten millions rupiah, even hundred millions rupiah. So, you can imagine how expensive the ritual is. For the less have family, they may sacrifice about 8 buffalos and 50 pigs. Still expensive, though.

Rambu Solo has become a symbol of social status among the Torajan community. For the rich and noble family they have to spend hundreds of millions rupiah to perform the Rambu Solo and maintain their noble status. This will take months and years of saving. But they do this sincerely for them to perform their believe, reach satisfaction, and finally respect their beloved. They themselves will also be treated the same one day by their children and relatives. For all of these, the Torajan keeps the Rambu Solo until today.