Chris (Leicester, UK)
As the axe dropped, I flinched. Buffalo sacrifice is important at Torajan funerals in Sulawesi, Indonesia. In this achingly-beautiful land of glistening rice-paddies and wide skies, death is ever-present. 
I'd seen burial niches in the rocks and “tau-tau”…life-sized, wooden effigies of the dead… staring down from galleries, like opera-goers.
Then I watched as the deceased man’s granddaughter, dressed in red, Tana Toraja’s colour of death, led a procession of female mourners. The men meanwhile jostled the dragon-shaped coffin along in a party-like atmosphere and later chanted the deceased’s life-story, swaying in slow rotation. A funeral maybe but also a celebration of life. 
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