The Torajans of Sulawesi Island Death Theory

As humans, we all become intimate with death at least once in our lives. We live and then we die, it’s as simple as that. Death, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is just the end of life. However, this basic definition of death only perpetuates fear. This is due to the lack of knowledge that we have as to what happens after we die. Many choose to comfort this fear with religion or hope that there is something more after our lives end. Religion proves that our beliefs and attitudes towards death greatly affect the way that we choose to live our lives. Through analyzing other cultures’ perspectives, the human experience, and our current biomedical definition of death itself, we could learn how to face it with something other than fear.

The Torajans of Sulawesi Island in eastern Indonesia view death not as a singular event, but rather a gradual social process. Major cultural interactions are not weddings, births, or even family dinners; they are funerals. With guest lists in the hundreds and spanning the course of a few days to a few weeks, their funerals are more of festivals than a ceremony. The death of one in Torajan culture is not a private sadness, but more of a publicly shared transformation. This transformation is just as much about the identity of the living as it is a remembrance for the dead. Due to the sizes of these funerals, it takes months, sometimes years to gather the proper resources to perform them. The deceased are placed in a temporary home where they are cleaned and embalmed often. They are referred to as sick or sleeping until their funeral rites have been completed. Not only does this let the family properly grieve the death, rather than immediately accepting the reality, but it allows the family to maintain ...

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...we ascribe to death. Ask any poet or philosopher, they will tell you that life and death are not clear cut or easily delineated, which is why this struggle will remain in healthcare until we broaden and revise the modern medical definition of death.

If we augment our views on death to encompass life, we could be able to experience death as a part of life. If we were to put aside the fear of death and socially acknowledge that we will all die soon, imagine the decisions that society would make. Remembering that we are going to die will remind us that we have nothing to lose because nearly everything falls away in the face of death. If we were to contemplate and value other meanings about life and death, it could potentially alter the dialogues we have about death. This could change the way that we die, but more importantly, it could transform the way that we live.