Facing Death

At a funeral of the Toraja on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, several buffaloes are traditionally sacrificed. The people of this tribe believe that the deceased person will be accompanied and protected by the buffalo souls during their passage into the afterlife. When I was a guest to one of these ceremonies near the small town of Rantepao, I felt so intensely confronted with death like never before. Despite all the cruelty of the ritual, I got the impression that these people dealt with death in an exemplary natural and open way. The photo of a boy who was visibly calm as he watched one of the killed buffaloes being skinned and then gutted before his eyes will always remind me of this profound experience.

Rantepao, Sulawesi (Indonesia), Juli 2013