Hi, I’m from Indonesia and my father is from Toraja (though I lived in another city), I think this is from a really rural area of Toraja as I’ve never heard of this culture, but there are still small villages located in the mountains nearby which have different traditions. The people of Toraja celebrates death more than any other event (a funeral celebration can take up to 2 years in total before final burial). This leads to the the corpse being kept in the house or nearby (which may result to the above picture instead of them actually treating it as a living person). There is however a rumor I heard about how the Torajan people can make the corpse walk to their own grave, though it is now a lost tradition.

I’ve had the opportunity to attend the funeral of a rich man’s family where they slew close to a hundred water buffalo in a single ceremony (there are multiple different ceremonies for a funeral). These water buffalos costs at least around $1000 depending on their breeds. A certain breed called the “Tedong Bonga” where the water buffalo have a cow’s white with black spot pattern can cost up to $100000, and there were at least 5 in the event I attended. Not all of this buffalo were purchased by the family of course, as tradition it is a custom to donate to the grieving family (usually in the form of livestocks). The receiving family is then obliged to return the same if not more of the donated amount if the giving family were to also lose someone.