Buffalo slaughter: A sacred ritual in Toraja

Text by Johannes Simbolon and photos by Mulkan Salmona

TANA TORAJA, South Sulawesi (JP): They call it tedong in daily life and karambau in mantras, poetry and rituals. Either way it -- the buffalo -- occupies the hearts and minds of the Torajans from birth until after death.

Images of buffalo crop up in all Toraja carvings, and some of their coffins take its shape.

Eulogized in many legends, the Toraja people compose poetry for the animals, give them the finest grass to eat, give them expensive whisky to drink, name them, provide them with comfortable stables, bathe them with aromatic oils, and never use them to plow fields.

In the end, after all the special treatment, the buffalo are slaughtered during various rituals, particular the Rambu Solo' (death ritual). The slaughter might anger animal lovers but it fascinates the Torajans.

The souls of the slaughtered buffalo are believed to guard the souls of the dead on their way to puya (the realm of the dead).

The Torajans have several categories of buffalo. The top and most expensive class is the tedong bonga, or buffalo which have white and black patches and blue eyes. The location of the white spots and their proportion to the black determines the subgroup of bonga buffalo. Saleko buffalo have roughly an equal amount of white and black skin. If the white patch is located on the head, the buffalo is called bonga ulu.

The Torajans claim the bonga buffalo are only found in their land, but J. Kreemer states in his book De Karbouw; zijn betekenis voor de volken van den de Indonesische Archipel, published in 1956, that the black and white buffalo are also found in Sumba, Flores, Roti and Timor.

The origin of the pied buffalo is unknown. The Torajans maintain that the birth of bonga is a matter of chance; that it can't be obtained through crossbreeding.

A pied buffalo is believed to bring luck and prosperity to its owner and is therefore expensive.

A peasant in Pangli, Tana Toraja, told The Jakarta Post last month that his saleko was worth Rp 20 million (US$8,630), the cost of seven ordinary buffalo.

Although ordinary black buffalo are not as valuable, pitch-black buffaloes called pudu' can cost as much as saleko.

The form and length of the horns also determine the price. Horns shaped like a sickle moon are highly valued by the Torajans, but those that bend downwards are considered less valuable. The longer the horn, the higher the price.

Only to kapua (nobles) and to makaka (free rich people) can slaughter bonga during their rituals. The to buda (slaves) can only slaughter the cheap, ordinary buffalo. The nobles and the rich can also kill the common buffalo after they have slaughtered the better types.

The tedong bulan (white buffalo) is considered a bane in most areas of Toraja. They can't be slaughtered during death rituals, and only in the Baruppu area are people allowed to eat its meat. The people living alongside the Sa'dan River starve albino calves to death.

"The calves need not to be taken care of because they are always born blind," said Joseph Tangke, the vice chairman of the Indonesian Guide Association in Tana Toraja.

According to legend, Lakipadada, the forefather of the princes of Ma'kale, tried to cross the sea astride a white buffalo. The animal, however, failed to get him to the shore and Lakipadada cursed it and announced that eating its meat was forbidden.

Another myth holds that the blood of Puang Matua, the supreme God in the Toraja's traditional religion, Aluk To Dolo, is white. The albino is therefore considered celestial, and obviously unsuitable to eat.

Outsiders find it hard to understand the Torajans "buffalo complex", says Dutch anthropologist Hetty Nooy-Palm. The Torajans don't use the animals for economic purposes, but spoil them only to "wastefully" slaughter them during death rituals.

Hundreds of buffalo are slaughtered during the ritual. The Torajans believe that the greater the number, the greater the glory the dead will receive in the afterlife. Socially, the buffalo slaughter is an exhibition of worldly success.

The Dutch-Indies government, which thought the buffalo slaughter was wasteful, attempted to change the custom by limiting the number of buffalo to be slaughtered. The Indonesian government continued the effort. Neither succeeded.

The Tana Toraja administration has passed many laws to change the custom. The latest, which has been in effect since the fiscal year 1992/1993, is a progressive tax on cattle slaughter. The more buffalo slaughtered, the higher the tax.

Under the law, the slaughter of up to four buffalo costs Rp 30,000 (US$13) for each beast, between five and nine buffalo are taxed Rp 35,000 each, between 10 and 24 buffalo are taxed Rp 40,000 each, and over 24 buffalo are taxed Rp 50,000 each.

The national tax for slaughtering buffalo is only Rp 5,000 per head.

The Torajans' need to stage a grand death ritual can't be crushed by taxes. Tana Toraja regency data shows that 7,500 buffalo are slaughtered each year in the regency.

"The progressive tax can't change the custom. A Rp 50,000 tax means nothing to the people who can afford to slaughter tens of buffalo, which cost up to Rp 20 million each," said S. Tandirerung, chief of the Tana Toraja tax office.

So far the government has not been able to break the "buffalo complex".

"These are the buffalo people," concludes Raymond Kennedy in his book Field notes on Indonesia: South Celebes 1949-1950.