Michaela, Budiman, Contemporary Funeral Rituals of Sa'dan Toraja. From Aluk Todolo to “New” Religions. KAROLINUM 2013, 160 stran, ISBN 978-80-246-2228-6.
The book discusses the Toraja ethnic group, who inhabit the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, and who, until the arrival of the first Dutch missionaries at the beginning of the 20th century, had essentially been cut off from the rest of the world. It can thus be said that until that point, the Toraja represented an isolated socio-cultural system. The book draws on the field research of the author, which focused on the study of the most important contemporary Toraja ritual – the funeral – and furthermore on identifying and documenting the changes that have affected Toraja society as a result of their embrace of Christianity during the past century. The Toraja region, which is at present populated by the adherents of various Christian denominations, Islam, and the autochthonous religion Aluk Todolo (lit. the religion of the ancestors), offered an exceptionally rich and varied source material for study. The result of this field research is this work, which aims to analyse the material gathered and to present a description of the formal and principal shifts expressed in the traditional rituals, which reflect seminal changes in terms of the role of religion. The book points out how Christianity, which has been adopted relatively recently, is incorporated into the indigenous religion and the customary law adat, which is derived from it. The book ventures to explain why in less than a hundred years, almost 90 % of the population converted from Aluk Todolo, mainly to Christianity, also describing the process of conversion, and the extent to which (and in which localities) the new religion most visibly affected the form of modern-day rituals. The opinions of both Christians and minority adherents of Aluk Todolo are noted, especially with regard to the current situation, where funeral rites in particular represent a curious syncretic phenomenon, reflecting the societal changes that have taken place.
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