On Foot Through Sulawesi's Traditional Heartland

Walking from Mamasa to Toraja,

Originally published in Bali and Beyond Magazine, April 2010

http://www.baliandbeyond.co.id/beyond_bali.html

The mountain village was full of sound: running water, the voices of children, buffalo lowing in the rice terraces, and goats bleating in the pine trees on the higher slopes. But there was no traffic noise; the nearest surfaced road was a full day’s walk back across the mountains.
I was sitting in the shade outside Ibu Maria’s house in the hamlet of Timbaan, enjoying the cool of the evening, and watching the first stars appearing in the pale sky above the pine-studded ridges. I had begun my solo trek that morning. There were two days of walking ahead of me, but if the landscapes I had seen already were anything to go by, the aches and blisters would all be worth it.

***

Sulawesi, the great, spidery, four-legged island that lies northeast of Bali, is one of Indonesia’s most intriguing destinations. It has a hinterland of green mountains, and clear coral seas offshore. Sulawesi’s most famous attraction is Tana Toraja, an upland fastness in the centre of the island’s southwest “leg”. Home to mountains, tumbling rice terraces, and traditional culture, it stands out even amongst Indonesia’s myriad wonders.
Most visitors to Toraja make their way directly from Sulawesi’s capital Makassar by bus or air, but I had chosen an off-beat route, one that would entail three days of walking through the mountains from the remote neighbouring region of Mamasa. I was slipping into Tana Toraja through the back door.

***

Like Toraja, Mamasa is mountainous. But while Toraja is now well connected to the outside world, Mamasa remains spectacularly remote and virtually untouched by tourism. There are no air links, and the 100-kilometre journey up from the main coastal highway took five hours along a narrow, potholed road.
Mamasa Town is a small place with a bustling market beside a shining river. I spent a night there, before shouldering my backpack, and setting out, along the track to Toraja.
Mamasa shares many cultural links with its more famous counterpart across the mountains. Most people adopted Christianity during the last century, but pre-Christian traditions are strong, especially in the rites that accompany funerals. As I plodded along the track, I passed open pastures where horses and slate-blue buffalo grazed, and village houses of elaborately carved wood, painted in interlocking patterns of black, red and gold. These houses are known in Mamasa as banua sura.

The trail led into rising forest, and I sweated uphill to reach a high pass, topped with a cluster of banua sura. Behind me I could see the long, mist-cut sweep of the Mamasa Valley; ahead, hidden behind ranks of interlocking ridges, lay my destination – the Toraja heartlands.
It was all downhill to Ibu Maria’s house in Timbaan. This kindly, middle-aged lady keeps a few rooms in her home free for any trekkers who pass. For a modest fee I slept on a lumpy mattress, and dined on rice, stewed vegetables and fried river fish. Ibu Maria even managed to dig out a dusty bottle of Bintang beer from a cupboard. There was no electricity and no fridge, but the cool mountain air had chilled the beer perfectly.
The following days led me through more beautiful landscapes. Villages of wooden houses stood beside bubbling streams and mist smoked over pine-covered hillsides. Gangs of village children chased after me, begging to have their photos taken. The route was easy to find, running along an unsurfaced track above a swift-flowing river, and there was no need for a map. On the second night I slept in a family home in another peaceful mountain village. I had now reached the fringes of Tana Toraja. The houses here had enormous, soaring roofs, and were decorated with buffalo horns. The third day’s walking took me over another high pass and down to Bittuang where I shambled, a little footsore, onto a surfaced road and caught a bus along green valleys to the heart of Tana Toraja.

***
Tana Toraja is beautiful. Rugged limestone peaks rise above forested valleys, with spectacular terraced rice fields on the lower slopes. Given the landscape it’s easy to see how the area stayed free from outside interference for centuries, and it is this that has made Toraja so special. Traditional ways are remarkably strong here.
Toraja’s villages are famous, and display some of the most spectacular traditional architecture in the world. The houses, known as tongkonan, have huge arched roofs, rising to high peaks. They are said to represent the boats that carried the ancestors of the Toraja people to Sulawesi. A typical Toraja village has a rank of these tongkonan, faced by another row of smaller buildings, designed for storing rice – the staple food.
A few villages, such as Ke’te Kesu near Rantepao, have been developed for tourists with car parks and gift shops. But from the high hillsides of Toraja you can pick out the arched roofs of countless villages, poking out from stands of trees; few of them have ever been visited by sightseers.

The people of Toraja kept invaders at bay for centuries, and they kept foreign religion at arm’s length too. Long after other parts of Sulawesi had converted to Islam and Christianity, Toraja was still a bastion of ancestor worship, known here as Aluk Todolo. Despite the efforts of Dutch missionaries in the early 20th Century, when Indonesia gained its independence in 1949 there were only a handful of Torajan Christians. These days most Torajans are nominal Catholics, but old ways are still maintained, especially when it comes to funerals. In Toraja people are buried in caves and cliff faces. Lifelike effigies of the dead are placed in niches close to the tomb, looking out with blank eyes across ricefields. These are known as tau tau, and some of the most striking can be seen at Lemo, south of Rantepao.
Death is taken seriously in Toraja, and huge investment is made to ensure that the deceased receive a good –and bloody – send off. During funerals dozens of buffalo are sacrificed to ensure a successful journey to the afterlife. Tourists are welcome to attend, and wandering around Rantepao you’re sure to hear of forthcoming ceremonies.

***

After resting my blistered feet in the little town of Rantepao, I hired a 100cc motorbike and headed for the hills. From the mountain eyrie of Batu Tumonga I looked out over spectacular vistas of rice terrace and forest and spent a night up there, sleeping in a traditional house. In the morning a sea of white mist had filled the valley and the sun rose pink over the distant ranges.
Tana Toraja, and it’s remote neighbour Mamasa, were some of the most beautiful and fascinating parts of Indonesia I had visited, and the route I had taken to get there was a perfect way to reach deeply traditional communities. But my feet were still sore, so when it was time to leave I took the easy option – I caught an air-conditioned bus back out of the mountains and down to Makassar.

© Tim Hannigan 2010

South Sulawesi: Entering Tana Toraja via the 'back door'

Trekking from Mamasa to Tana Toraja, Sulawesi, Indonesia

Originally published in The Jakarta Post, 22/07/07

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2007/07/22/south-sulawesi-entering-tana-toraja-039back-door039.html-0

The straps of my backpack cut into my shoulders and my legs ached as I struggled up the last steep rise through the pine trees.
Ahead of me lay another two days of walking along 50 kilometers of mountain track, and I began to wonder if this was a good idea. As the ground levelled and a cooling breeze ran in, a heartening view opened in both directions.
Behind me the long green curve of the Mamasa Valley ran away to the west, and ahead, beyond an army of interlocking spurs and ridges, lay my destination: Tana Toraja.

*****

The highland fastness of Tana Toraja in Sulawesi is famed for its traditional culture. Most visitors arrive by bus or air from Makassar, the capital and main gateway of Sulawesi, but I had decided to slip in through the back door, a route that meant three days of hard walking through remote mountain villages.
From Makassar I travelled north by bus, following the coast road. The blue water of the Makassar Strait shone in the sunlight; inland, knobbly limestone hills rose from the plain.
In the town of Polewali I transferred to a passenger jeep. Soon I was peering out through the mist at high forested hills.
The journey from Polewali to Mamasa is less than 100 kilometers, but the road is a wild one, doubling back and forth up sheer hillsides and dipping into sodden valleys. It took more than five hours, and I reached Mamasa long after dark.
Mamasa town is the capital of the region of the same name, a bustling little place beside a shining river, hemmed in by green hills.
Mamasa is sometimes known as West Toraja, and it shares many characteristics with its famous neighbor across the mountains. There is beautiful upland scenery, a host of traditional villages, and some remarkable architecture.
But Mamasa has no air transport and the road from the coast is terrible. It is far more remote than Toraja, and almost untouched by tourism.

Reaching the summit

The next morning I took an ojek (motorcycle taxi) east along the valley. The mountain air was clear. Horses and buffalo grazed on the cropped pastures between the pine trees. The road deteriorated the further we went, and at the tiny hamlet of Pa'kassasan the driver left me. I shouldered my backpack and started walking.
The track wound gently though villages, some with beautiful traditional houses. The houses of Mamasa are known as banua sura, and are similar to the famed tongkonan of Toraja, decorated in blacks, reds and golds.
Beyond the last village the road began to climb steeply through the creaking forest. I sweated and my pack felt terribly heavy, but eventually I reached a tiny cluster of wooden houses called Pasapa.
The name means ""summit"" in the local language, and that's just what it was. I could see Mamasa far behind me, gray cloud now rolling in, and ahead was the road to Toraja.
After a cup of sweet, dark coffee in a little shack by the roadside I set out downhill through the forest to the hamlet of Timbaan where Ibu Maria, a kindly middle-aged lady, runs a simple homestay for passing trekkers.
Timbaan was a peaceful place at the head of a long valley. I sat outside the rickety wooden house resting my tired feet in the afternoon listening to the sounds of the village: children's voices, the crowing of roosters and the lowing of buffalo from the terraces below the road.
A century ago all the people of the Mamasa area followed their own ancestor-worshipping religion. The first Dutch missionaries did not reach the valley until the 1920s, but as in Toraja the majority are Christian now.
As well as a simple church, Timbaan had a tiny mosque with a rusted steel dome. But there was no electricity here, and no loudspeaker to amplify the muezzin's call to evening prayer in the purple light of dusk.

'It could have been Scotland'

In the morning I set out downhill. The highland landscape was surreally beautiful, wisps of damp cloud smoking off the hillsides and layers of thin mist clinging to the pine trees.
This was a strange place where tropical and alpine worlds met. I passed through hamlets with palms and banana trees, then entered tall stands of sweet-scented spruce.
At lunchtime, after crossing the Masuppu River and climbing steeply through rice terraces I reached the village of Ponding, the last in Mamasa district. I stopped to chat for a while with Dr Teddy, a charming young Jakarta native. He and another doctor run the little clinic that serves the valley.
I plodded onward uphill. The sun was shining brightly now and the water glittered in the rice fields. The road was in a terrible state, surfaced with jagged, football-sized boulders.
I was astonished that vehicles ever managed to pass this way, and I was happy to be on foot, not bouncing in the back of a jeep. Even so, I was glad when I reached the village of Paku where I stopped for the night in a family home.
Somewhere after Ponding I had crossed the invisible boundary from the new province of West Sulawesi, and I was now on the fringes of Tana Toraja.
Paku was another perfect mountain village, full of gentle sound, and after a simple dinner of rice and fried fish I fell asleep listening to the rain pattering on the tin roof.
It was uphill again in the morning through cool shade. An hour out of Paku I reached a pass where the track was a mess of yellow mud. Here I felt far from the tropics. There were no houses or rice terraces; only mist, pines and a cool breeze. It could have been Scotland.
Indonesia reappeared a couple of hours later as I shambled into the big village of Bittuang. Suddenly after three days walking along a rough track the road surface changed to asphalt, and soon I was sitting in a passenger jeep, racing through the hills towards the Torajan heartland.

Sheer cliffs, epic funerals

Tana Toraja needs little introduction. Sprawling over the mountainous hinterland of South Sulawesi, it stands out even in Indonesia's spectacular myriad of traditional cultures. Stunning scenery and tumbling rice terraces, villages of remarkable tongkonan houses, sheer cliff faces where mysterious effigies stare out from carved niches, and wild funerals when buffalo are sacrificed combine to make Tana Toraja one of the most fabled destinations in the archipelago.
Arriving on foot through seemingly endless mountains, it was easy for me to see why strong traditions had survived here, cut off from the outside world.
Apart from a brief and unhappy occupation by Bugis warriors from the coast in the 17th Century, Toraja remained utterly isolated until last century.
It was only in the early 1900s that the Dutch colonial authorities fought their way in and took control.
Enthusiastic Protestant missionaries arrived in 1913, but they met with scant success: Two decades later there were fewer than 2000 Torajan Christians, and even at Indonesian Independence the majority still clung to their traditional Aluk Todolo religion, a blend of animism and ancestor worship.
Now the majority in Toraja are Christian, but the new faith has accommodated many old ways. The dead are still buried in caves; effigies, known as tau tau, are still carved and placed in cliff face niches and, most importantly, epic funerals of bloody sacrifice are held every year in the dry months of July and August.

*****

After resting my blistered feet for a night in the busy little market town of Rantepao I hired a motorbike and set out to explore.
Some of the traditional sites around Toraja have been geared up for tourists. At the village of Ke'te Kesu there are souvenir stalls and a ticket booth, and likewise at the cave graves of Londa and Lemo.
But these are no mummified vestiges of a culture. Head out on the network of winding lanes that lead into the hills and you will find that almost every village has a rank of spectacular tongkonan houses.
The buildings are said to represent a boat, with an arched roofline and a high decorated prow and are often adorned with tall columns of buffalo horns, a symbol of status, and protection from evil spirits.
They are always aligned north-south, and are faced by a row of rice barns, carved and roofed in similar style.
I spent a night sleeping in a tongkonan in the cool air of Batu Tumonga, a tiny village high on a mountainside. The views were spectacular, and in the silent darkness the lights of Rantepao glittered far below and a yellow moon rose behind the hills.
In the morning I rode on, often losing my way among the rice fields and stopping in nameless hamlets to admire the buildings and chat with the friendly villagers.
I could have spent weeks exploring the area, but my time was running out. That evening I rode back to Rantepao, and left Toraja, heading back to Makassar the usual way -- by bus!

© Tim Hannigan 2007