SA'DAN TORAJA, SAVU, ROTI

Roti: the corpse is laid within the coffin which represents a boat sailing to the land of the dead and used to be buried beneath the floor of the house

SAVU

sa'dan toraja

Similarly among a number of ethnic groups of the Archipelago the space beneath the pile-dwelling is identified with the underworld, therefore the place for the burial. In this context the significance of the pile-dwelling is closely related to the granary.

The 'lowau' (sea, downstream) side of the Ceram house is symbolically connected with the male and the death, while the 'lodaya' (land, upstream) side with the female and the life. After the burial, people who carried the corpse sit down on the house of the dead and chew sirih-pinang. Each pinang is divided into halves. The one halves placed on the 'lowau' side is reserved for the dead and the remains after chewing are thrown beneath the floor because the domain under the floor, together with the 'lowau' side, is identified with the world of the dead.

More practical example is observed in the regions such as central Toraja, Savu, Roti, where the dead was actually buried under the house before the practice was forbidden by Dutch. The corpse is laid within the coffin which represents a boat sailing to the land of the dead located in the west, and used to be buried beneath the floor of the house in Roti. Babies under three months are buried under the house stairs and make auspicious offerings so that they may not be harmful to their mothers and brothers born after them but may become a source of good fortune. Thus the individual ghost is incorporated within the house as a guardians of the house and represented by three pronged lontar-leaf shapes called 'maik' hung under the rafters of the roof.

This is the reason why both the living and the dead reside together within one house because 'the ancestors had the power to ensure the continued fertility of the land and of human beings'