Feasts of Honor: Ritual and Change in the Toraja Highland

Among the Toraja of highland Sulawesi, Indonesia, mortuary rituals are great performances. Bellowing water buffalo and squealing pigs for sacrifice, colorful displays of ritual architecture, and formal processions of gift-bearing guests set the scene for complex dramas about status, human value, and ties to ancestors, followers, and kin. To Indonesians throughout the archipelago, Toraja rituals have come to represent the cultural identity of this well-known group. Feasts of Honor is an exploration of these rituals, their changing meanings, and the lively dialogues they have sparked within Toraja culture, from the Dutch Colonial period to the recent era of nationalism, tourism, and migration.