Tana Toraja

Kabupaten Tana Toraja Tana Toraja
Basic data
Country	Indonesia
region	Sulawesi Selatan
Seat	Macals
surface	1990 km²
Residents	250,000 (2007)
density	126 inhabitants per km²
ISO 3166-2	ID-SN
Website	www.tanatorajakab.go.id (Indonesian)
politics
Bupati	Theofilus Allorerung SE.

Coordinates: 3 ° 6 ′  S , 119 ° 51 ′  E

Tana Toraja is a government district ( Kabupaten ) in the Sulawesi Selatan Province , Indonesia . With an area of ​​1,990 km² and almost 250,000 inhabitants (2007) it is home to the Toraja ethnic group . The seat of government is Makale , the cultural center of the Toraja country is Rantepao , which is the seat of the administrative district Toraja Utara , which was spun off from Tana Toraja in 2008. Tana Toraja is very mountainous. The height varies between 150 and 3,083 meters above sea level.

history

The name Toraja comes from the Buginese to-riaja and means something like “people up there”, with which the Bugis, who settled in the lowlands, referred to the highland inhabitants. Only later was the name adopted by Europeans and the residents as a self-designation. The region was originally very decentrally divided into many individual Tongkonan structures , which often fought with one another. The original settlement focus was around the Sa'dantal between today's Rantepao and Makale. The outlying areas were gradually settled by establishing new daughter Tongkonans in valleys that were suitable for rice cultivation. It was not until around 1860 that Torajas was integrated into a supraregional trade network with the cultivation of coffee. At the same time as the coffee trade, a trade in European guns and cotton fabrics developed from the Bugis states in the east and south to Toraja, while coffee or (Toraja) slaves were exported from Toraja via the Bugis states and Arab traders. The two trade routes led east to the port city and seat of the Bugis empire Luwu Palopo and south to the port city of Parepare of the Bugis area Sidenreng . In 1906 the Dutch marched into Toraja after taking the Bugis-rich Bone and Luwu in 1905 . Particularly in the west and north around Pangala 'the population put up fierce resistance. The boundaries of Tana Torajas were established during the Dutch-East Indian reign in 1909. Christianity, to which the majority of the population officially belong today, came to Toraja with Dutch missionaries in 1913 and was able to increase its proportion in the decades that followed. In the 1920s, the Reformed Missionary Alliance of the Dutch Reformed Church began its missionary work, supported by the Dutch colonial government. In addition to the introduction of Christianity, the Dutch colonial rulers abolished slavery and imposed local taxes. In 1926 Tana Toraja was placed under the administration of the Bugis State of Luwu. In the 1930s, Muslims attacked the Toraja from the lowlands, leading to a wave of conversion to Christianity among those who promised protection from the Dutch and a movement against the Muslim Bugis and Macassars formed. In 1942, Japanese occupation troops appeared in Toraja. In 1946 the region received the status of a regentschap and in 1957 it received the status of an administrative district ( Kabupaten ). Early Dutch missionaries, however, faced strong opposition under Toraja, especially among the nobility, because they were annoyed by the abolition of the profitable slave trade . Some Torajas were forcibly relocated to the lowlands by the Dutch, where they could be more easily controlled. Taxes were kept high, which undermined the wealth of the nobles. Ultimately, Dutch influence failed to subjugate the Toraji culture, and few Torajans converted to Christianity. By 1950 only 10% of the population had converted to Christianity. Between 1951 and 1965 (after Indonesian independence), there was a turbulent time in southern Sulawesi as the Muslim separatist movement Darul Islam fought for an Islamic state in Sulawesi. Fifteen years of guerrilla warfare led to massive conversions to Christianity among the Toraja. However, loyalty to the Indonesian government did not guarantee Toraja's security. In 1965, a presidential decree required every Indonesian citizen to join one of five officially recognized corporations: Islam, Christianity ( Protestantism and Catholicism ), Hinduism, or Buddhism . The Toraja religion, Aluk, was not legally recognized and the Torajans raised their voices against the law. In order to legalize Aluk , it had to be accepted as part of one of the official religions. In 1969 Aluk Um Dolo ("the path of the ancestors") was legalized as a sect of Hinduism Dharma , as the official name of Hinduism in Indonesia was. Today Toraja is a popular destination for cultural tourists. In addition, numerous Western anthropologists have studied native culture.

Culture

see Toraja .

religion

The official website of the Tana Toraja district shows the following figures in 2006 (before the spin-off of Toraja Utara, figures for both districts together): Protestants : 65.15%, Catholics : 16.97%, Islam : 5.99% and Toraja - " Hindu " (Aluk To Dolo): 5.99%.

Attractions

Rock burial chambers in Lemo

The following traditional Toraja settlements were put on the tentative list for world heritage in Indonesia in June 2009 .

• Lemo : rock tombs with galleries of tau-tau statues
• Tumakke: single Tongkonan with rice granary on a raised terrace 10 km west of Makale

More Attractions

• Buntu Kalando - 11 km east of Makale: Museum Buntu Kalando near Sangalla
• Sirope (6 km north of Makale): rock graves and Tau-Tau
• Kambira - 10 km east of Makale: baby grave trees
• Suaya / Sanggalla - 11 km east of Makale: In Tampangallo rock tombs with galleries of Tau Tau statues of the descendants of Puang Tamboro Langi 'and the kings of Sanggalla. There is also a place for ritual ceremonies of the nobleman Rabtelobe with some menhirs. It is believed that the kings of Sangalla descended from Tamboro Langi ', who is said to have introduced the caste system, funeral rites and agricultural techniques into Toraja and who is said to have descended from heaven on a stone staircase. However, besides the descendants of the kings of Sangalla, the nobles of Menkendek and Makale also claim to be descended from Tamboro Langi '.
• Sarambu Assing waterfall
• Tilangnga ': natural pool, 11 km from Makale

economy

Before Suharto's "New Order" , Toraja's economy was purely agricultural, with cultivated wet rice field cultivation in terraces on the mountain slopes and additional cultivation of sweet potatoes and corn . A lot of time and energy was spent on rearing the water buffalo, pigs and chickens, which were mainly used for ceremonial sacrifices and personal consumption. The only agribusiness in Toraja was a Japanese coffee factory ( Kopi Toraja ). With the start of the New Order in 1965, Indonesia's economy developed and opened to foreign investment. Multinational companies such as oil and mining companies opened new offices in Indonesia. Younger Torajas in particular went to Kalimantan for wood and oil, or to the Indonesian province of Papua for mining or to the cities of Sulawesi and Java to work for the foreign companies . The churn rate from Torajas was constant until 1985.

The focus of the economy in Toraja gradually shifted towards tourism from 1984 onwards. Between 1984 and 1997, many Torajas earned their living from tourism, working in hotels, as tour guides or selling souvenirs. With increasing political and economic instability in Indonesia in the late 1990s, including religious conflicts in Sulawesi, tourism in Tana Toraja declined dramatically. The region is still dominated by agriculture today. Main products are vegetables, sweet potatoes , rice, coffee, cloves , cocoa and vanilla . It is not clear whether the coffee cultivation came to Toraja by the Dutch or by Arab traders or Bugis. However, it did not gain commercial importance until the last third of the 19th century. There are two centers of coffee cultivation, in the north around Pangala 'and in the west a triangle south of Rantetayo. Arabica coffee from Toraja is valued under the name 'Bungin' on the world market because of its quality. The name Bungin is derived from the port city of the same name, through which the coffee trade routes from Toraja led. There are six traditional markets that take place every six days and then move on to the next location:

• Pasar Makale
• Pasar Rantepao
• Pasar Ge'tengan
• Pasar Sangalla '
• Pasar Rembon
• Pasar Salubarani

Administrative division

The Tana Toraja administrative district consists of 19 administrative districts ( Kecamatan ) (as of 2010):

Surname	Population census 2010
Bonggakaradeng	6,668
Simbuang	6,166
Rano	6,042
Mappak	5,509
Set dec	27,342
Gandang Batu Silanan	19,238
Sangalla	6,606
Sangalla Selatan (South Sangalla)	7,361
Sangalla Utara (North Sangalla)	7,327
Macals	33,631
Makale Selatan (South Makale)	12,415
Makale Utara (North Makale)	11,799
Saluputti	7,424
Bittuang	14,247
Rembon	18,219
Masanda	6,278
Malimbong Balepe	8,923
Rantetayo	10,737
Kurra	5,149

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Toby Alice Volkman: Visions and Revisions: Toraja Culture and the Tourist Gaze . In: American Ethnologist . 17, No. 1, February 1990, pp. 91-110. JSTOR 645254 . doi : 10.1525 / ae.1990.17.1.02a00060 .
2. ↑ see Kis-Jovak et al. (1988) Ch. 2, Hetty Nooy-Palm, The World of Toraja , pp. 12-18.
3. ↑ Zakaria J. Ngelow: Traditional Culture, Christianity and Globalization in Indonesia: The Case of Torajan Christians Archived from the original on June 20, 2007. Information: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) In: Inter-Religio . 45, Summer 2004. Retrieved May 18, 2007. 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Toby Alice Volkman: A View from the Mountains . In: Cultural Survival Quarterly . 7, No. 4, December 31, 31, 1983. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
5. ↑ Heriyanto Yang: The history and legal position of Confucianism in postindependence Indonesia . (PDF) In: Marburg Journal of Religion . 10, No. 1, August 2005. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
6. ↑ Tana Toraja Official Website ( Indonesian ). Archived from the original on May 29, 2006. Retrieved October 4, 2006.
7. ↑ Tana Toraja Traditional Settlement on the UNESCO tentative list (English).
8. ^ Biro Pusat Statistics, Jakarta, 2011.

literature

• Terence W. Bigalke, Tana Toraja: A social History of an Indonesian People. Singapore University Press, 2005, ISBN 9971-69-313-5 .

Web links

Commons : Tana Toraja Regency  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Unesco Tana Toraja Traditional Settlement