House and architecture of toraja

Water buffalos form the basis of wealth in toraja society. Land, bridal wealth and divorce payments are paid off in terms of buffaloes. In all major ceremonies, buffaloes are sacrificed and offered to the ancestors. Funeral ceremonies and house blessings play such an important role in toraja society that eve those called Christian still practice a subdued form of animist ceremonies.
The name for the toraja dwelling of nobility is tongkonan, a word derived from the Indonesian verb “to sit” or tongkon. Seating arrangement is an important concept in many south east asian cultures, visibly marking hierarchical distinctions of rank. The general word for house in toraja is banua, whose meaning, depending on the context, can come to signify either house, universe, village, or heaven, further emphasizing the importance of the idea of the house as a microcosm .

The house is oriented along the cardinal points, the north being the most sacred direction. A house should always face north, as it is the direction of puang matua, the highest god of aluk to dolo religion. The back gable of the house faces south, direction of puya, land of the souls after death. The northern façade of the house is called the lindo banua, or "face" of the house or also ulu' uai or "head of the river". The south end of the house is called the pollo banua or polo uai meaning the "posterior" of the house or the tail of the river. Indeed, the great sa'dan driver after which the sa'dan toraja name themselves does in fact flow north to south. Houses are built close to one another, with no clear distinction marking the limits of personal or private space.

As previously mentioned, the architecture of the toraja houses is designed to represent the microcosm, as are the majority of pile-built dwellings of Indonesia. In addition to fulfilling symbolic purposes, pile houses offer many practical advantages in the hot tropics, such as ventilation and cool temperatures within the house. Toraja houses are symbolically divided into three levels corresponding to traditional Austronesia cosmology which divides the universe into the underworld (represented by the lower part of the house), the earth (represented by the human dwelling platform), and the upper world, known in Indonesian as the alam ghaib ( represented by the roof space, where the heirlooms are kept). In this manner, houses establish the link between the spirit realm, the human world and the underworld.

In the human dwelling area of the house, between the spirit abode and the underworld, the length of the long and relatively narrow space is almost always divided into three section crosswise: these are the central room or Sali where the hearth is located on the eastern half of the room; the tangga', or north bedroom of the children, and the sumbung, or parents' bedroom at the south end. The toraja do not sleep with their heads pointing west or south, as these are the directions those associated with death and after life.

The space inside the toraja house is laid out in the form of one long narrow corridor stretching from the main door at the north end to the back bedroom at the south. Few windows provide limited access to natural sunlight, and living space is surprisingly limited. Although some houses have interior doors that could separate each of the three rooms, they are generally left open so as not to hamper the direct line of vision from one end of the house to the other. In some cases, flimsy bits of cloth are hung up at the thresholds of the rooms, whose purpose, it seems, are as more to signal the points of transitions from one space to another as they are to ensure minimal privacy. This theory is supported by the cases in which neither door nor curtain exists, yet a slightly raised cross-beam at the transition point between two rooms is clearly evident.

To show the transition from the level to the spirit world in the roof, a cross-beam called the pata sere or “cat bridge” runs the length of the house from north to south separating the two realms. In toraja mythology, the cat plays a central role: the cat is the guardian of the bridge that links the middle of the world ( human domain) to the to of the world ( spirit realm). The cat allows entrance to good toraja, while thieves are chased down to the lowest level of the world, the animal world, to wallow in buffalo excrement.

At the top most part of the front and back gable are located two small triangles known as lalang deata or spirit windows. These provide both an entrance at the north and an exit at the south for the spirits who live in the roof. The spirits of the ancestors of the house who dwell in the roof may be as dangerous as they are benevolent if not placated through ceremony and offerings. For this reason, the house must continuously be rebuilt and restored during the ceremonies such as the house blessings, conducted in order to pacify spirits and to keep them well and energized. Not performing these ceremonies could result in a “weak” or “sick” house which is believed to be a negative and harmful force for the village. Thus the well-being of the house is believed to be directly related to the well-being of the village.

Posted in: Indonesian Art