Trip to Sulawesi ► Cultures and ancestral rituals

Trip to Sulawesi from 18 to 28 August 2024 (11 d. / 10 n.) / TRIP COMPLETED

During this trip to Sulawesi, we will take a tour of the most ancient cultures and rituals of the archipelago, in Indonesia. We will travel from the mountains that house the Toraja cemeteries and funerals, in the interior of Sulawesi, to tiny islands within the Wakatobi National Park. An underwater paradise where the lords of the sea live, a community that traditionally lived, nomadically, in boats on the ocean and about which scientists say that a genetic mutation in the spleen allows them to last up to 13 minutes underwater, which they take advantage of to hunt marine animals with their own hands.

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Discover the highlights of this trip to Sulawesi

We will spend a few days in Sampela with the Bajau tribe

Upon arriving at the village of Sampela , we will first go to introduce ourselves to the village chief and inform him of our presence, to convey the purpose of our visit to the traditional village of this Bajau tribe. During our stay, we will accompany the members of the Bajau tribe in their diving activities, in order to get some fish. We will witness their great resistance and skill under the ocean, which allows them to work without an oxygen bottle or any support device, unique techniques in the world. For all traditional activities in the village we will use wooden boats to move around, just like the locals have done for centuries.

We will experience the funeral rituals of the Tana Toraja

We will have 3 full days to explore the funeral rituals of the Tana Toraja. The essence of their mortuary rituals is that when someone dies they wait until the dry season (August) to bury them. Meanwhile, the locals keep the dead in their homes, making sure to “feed” them and take care for them properly, as if they were just sick. For the Toraja people, until a corpse has lost all the skin and flesh, the soul remains within it. We will attend various funeral rituals. Some of them last up to five days and include hundreds of sacrifices of oxen and pigs and traditional dances and dresses, exclusive to this month of the year. In others, the deceased are placed in the center and cared for and entertained before the gathered public.