In the remote Simbuang district of Toraja, many people still believe in traditional belief system, known as Aluk To Dolo (The Religion of the Ancient People). According to local customs, when someone in the village dies, all people in the whole village are not allowed to work or to go to the field until the corpse is inside a coffin. It’s obligatory for every villager to participate in the funeral ceremony. In the third day after the announced death, all men in the village should go to forest to cut a tree and make a coffin. Then, all men take turn in carrying the heavy coffin and walk long distance until they reach the house of the dead. Someone’s death is everybody’s business; one’s death unites thousands of the living ones.
Simbuang, Tana Toraja, Indonesia, 2016