The walking dead of Toraja

probably very strong skin illness

What a huge head

burn victim

So why is your pic the only pic I can find of that?

That person has been dead for some time already, rigor mortis has set in so the body is rigid enough to be balanced upright. That thing on the bottom right is the coffin she was in. Several more coffins can be seen in the top right.

Last Edited by Swift on 04/01/2010 11:41 PM

Torajan funerals are held only when the families have saved enough money to host the elaborate event. It is necessary to build a complete village to house literally hundreds of guests over a 5-day period. The temporary village is then dismantled afterwards. The other major cost involves buying animals for sacrifice.

One healthy buffalo can cost up to 40 million rupiah (US$3,300) and a pig can cost up to 3million rupiah (US$250). It is not uncommon to have over 50 pigs and several buffaloes sacrificed. For this reason, the dead body may end up staying in the house for up to five years or more to await the accumulation of finances.

One of the traditional villages I visited actually had a five-year-old mummified body laying in the lounge. The dead person was an elderly female, whose husband had died previously and the family were still unable to pay for a second funeral even five years later.
Toraja Country

Some of the mummified bodies are stored in ornately decorated sarcophaguses

lol...yea its called death.