Amy Blog #2 (May 15 2006)

Craig and I were on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia from Tuesday May 9 to Friday May 12, mainly to see the highland area of Tana Toraja, which was a culture that held out for centuries, being more proto-polynesian I guess, against the hindu and then muslim cultures of Indonesia. They remained isolated rice farmers and hunters, even doing ritual human sacrifice with headhunting, until the 1920s or 30s and only became easy to access in the 60s. That's changed of course as human population pressure has led to farming and hunting all over Indonesian highlands. But these people still reside high up about the world, farming rice, raising water buffalo and holding very, very elaborate ceremonies to honor their ancestors - their "Matua".

The houses that the high-status people were allowed to build are gigantic swooping structures almost like a Howard Johnsons with very high prows, covered with beautiful geometric lightly carved designs in white, dark chocolate, orange and yellow. We have some amazing pictures of the high prows being build and repaired. They are called "rice barns" and each is up on stilts two stories off the ground, with the lower level just a shady open platform for people to rest on. The surrounding countryside is dramatic, mountainous country with limestone karst and rice paddies and rushing rivers, cool at night but moist. The food is spicy with lots of pork or buffalo and chicken and fish, vegetables include delicious garlicky fresh green beans and some greens that I think are fern fiddleheads. There is a surprisingly nice music tradition, there is a meditative humming chanting done at funerals in close harmony, and there are some more modern mid-1900s love songs with guitars, and the younger kids play in bamboo-flute orchestras that were imported from the philippines. Many people are christian or catholic converts and while we were there a local church was holding a holy roller revival with "Amen, amen" just like we know it but in Torajanese. Meanwhile many people who have moved into the area are muslim, also very nice contrast, nice music and some differences of opinion.

We spent 8 hours each way to get there, through the south Sulawesi Bugi country, and this was also fabulous - that's through coastal plains with pirate boats and two-story houses with intricately carved verandas and front windows in curves and swoops, with a "fish-tail" peak to the roofline. We'll show pictures. Painted in Caribbean colors, turquoise, blue, purple, pink, or sometimes just in fine dark wood or sometimes with bamboo matting as the wall texture. Young girls with muslim head scarves, tasty coconut desserts sold on the road, corn on the cob, fish in spices. The "Bugi" people were pirates and they are the source of our famous "The bogey man will get you" legends, apparently, But they were nice.

I have to go now to free up this computer for the masses - we are boarding in Singapore for HOng Kong. Craig and I will follow up with a longer email about our wonderful guide Dodo and our music and people adventures in Toraja land and about the hotels and towns and funerals and animal markets later.