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Living With The Dead

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It's the great unspoken.

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A taboo.

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Something that I've had to face

up to recently myself.

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Most of us don't know how

to think or talk about

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death.

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But there are some people

who do think they know.

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On the Indonesian island of Toraja,

centuries-old customs make the dead

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a constant part of day-to-day life.

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I have come here to learn more

about these remarkable practices,

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which blur the line

between this world and the next.

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A morbid obsession?

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Or a healthier way to deal

with the grief of losing a

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loved one?

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Tana Toraja in Indonesia

is an extraordinary place.

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Here, ancient aminist beliefs

intertwine with new religions,

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resulting in unique rituals.

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At this traditional

Torajan funeral

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friends and family

gather to celebrate the

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life of a local wealthy man called

Dengan, who died over two years ago.

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But here is the strange thing.

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As far as his family

and everybody else

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here are concerned,

Dengan is still alive.

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Torajans have a strong desire

to stay connected to

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their dead loved ones.

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In spirit and in body.

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To see what this means in practice,

I went to visit a Torajan family.

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Hello.

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Nice to meet you.

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This man is 86 and his

family take care of him.

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He died more than two years ago.

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Here, it takes months

and sometimes years,

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until a funeral

actually takes place.

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In the meantime, families keep

the deceased in the house and

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care for them on a daily basis.

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They treat them

as if they were sick.

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Torajans traditionally rub special

leaves and herbs over a body

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to preserve it.

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Nowadays, a chemical called

formalin is often injected

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into the body to embalm it.

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There is a powerful

odour of musk and the

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chemical.

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When my father died,

we buried him in two days.

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It was all very sudden,

it was all very

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bam, bam.

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And to be honest with you,

a few years on, I still feel I

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haven't adjusted.

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It was just too sudden.

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I am still in a bit of a shock.

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Does this help you?

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What's really incredible,

none of these

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kids seem to be fazed by the fact

that there is a dead person lying

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here.

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Everybody is so calm.

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He will remain here

until his family have

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saved enough money

for a lavish funeral.

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During their lives, Torajans

work hard to accumulate

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wealth.

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But rather than saving for

a luxurious life, they save for a

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grand departure from this earth.

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The wealthier they are,

the larger and

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more elaborate the funerals.

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Some last for days.

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Dengan was a rich man.

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And his funeral lasted seven days.

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Animal sacrifice is

a fundamental part of

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this tradition.

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Buffaloes are a very important

element to the Torajan

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funerals, because they are believed

to be the carriers of the deceased's

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soul into the afterlife.

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The meat is eaten at the funeral

feast, and the buffalo horns

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create create homes

and tombs of the deceased.

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A symbol of wealth and status.

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The sacrifice, it's one part

of helping your soul to

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reincarnation.

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Does it depend on your wealth?

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$50,000 was spent

on Dengan's funeral.

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Roughly ten times more

than the average annual income here.

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They sacrificed 24

buffaloes, more than

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40 pigs, as well as feeding and

accommodating hundreds of guests.

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The funeral is one way to make your

soul get to reincarnation.

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Soon, the soul of the

poor people will be

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getting a little bit longer.

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Even at this point, Dengan's

funeral is not complete.

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Only when his coffin is carried to

the top

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of this special platform,

is he finally considered dead.

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According to ancient animist

beliefs here, this is the

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point where the soul finally

ascends to the cosmos.

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From there, it watches

over living relatives,

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bringing them good fortune, as long

as the families take proper care of

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their dead.

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For centuries, the Torajans

have been laying

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their dead to rest

in caves like this.

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Yet another place where the

afterlife connects with this one.

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This cave winds for two kilometres.

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And it's pretty full.

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Even here, friends

and families bring

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necessities for their

dead relatives.

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In a tradition predating

photography, statues of dead

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noblemen and women are carefully

carved out of wood.

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Most people here are

farmers, and their average

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income is around $5,000 a year.

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It's clear that for Torajans, the

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process of dying and being

reincarnated is far smoother if you

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are rich.

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These sculptures are dressed

in the clothes, jewellery

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and even the hair of the deceased.

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Silent sentinels looking out over

this one from another.

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Here, the physical

relationship between the

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dead and the living

continues long after death.

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Even after burials.

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People are coming out of the church

now, and they are all shaking hands

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in their traditional manner.

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They do this and then

they touch their

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chest.

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And they're getting ready

for a less usual ceremony.

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The village leader explains

that the ritual is called manene,

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also known as the cleansing

of the corpses.

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Once every couple of years,

families bring the coffins of long

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departed relatives out

of their graves and

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open them up for a big

family reunion.

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These are the close relatives

of a woman called Maria,

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and they are here for the cleansing.

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One of the guests is a Torajan

professor of sociology.

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The family will bring

Maria out of this

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tomb for the first time today.

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CHANTING.

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They're bringing Maria out now.

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We're just waiting for them

to open her coffin.

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I'm feeling a bit

nervous, to be honest.

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I had to come out to get

some distance from it.

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There really was no escaping death.

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I watched as they slaughtered pigs.

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And the final sacrifice.

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A buffalo.

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The coffin is finally opened.

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Once again, that

strong odour of musk

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and formalin filled the air.

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Thank you.

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They want me to show what she looked

like before and what she

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looks like now.

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She died three years ago and got

buried two years ago.

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They kept in the house for one year.

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Maria is covered in her most

treasured possessions.

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Relatives touch her as a greeting.

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I'm going to try to

touch her hair, just as

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everybody else does,

as a sign of respect.

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She feels...

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She feels very hard.

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The hair feels like normal.

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Still very soft.

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I couldn't help but wonder how

children feel seeing

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their mother this.

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Her eldest son seemed very calm.

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I don't see any more sign of grief.

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It's just normal.

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It's just the body is

here and it's normal.

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When you couldn't see the body,

when it was inside the

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coffin, even I was shaking.

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I was a lot more nervous.

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And everybody seemed more upset.

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Well, the relatives.

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But now everybody is content.

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Another guest particularly close

to Maria is Esther, her

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daughter-in-law.

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How do you think this helps

you deal with the grief?

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But for me, I want to remember my

relatives, my dad, I want to

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remember him when he was alive.

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I'm worried that

if I see him dead, I

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will - his identity

will change in my mind.

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Many of these practices

are slowly disappearing.

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The majority of them

converted from the old

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animist religion to Christianity,

after Dutch missionaries arrived

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less than a century ago.

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But as here, the two

can and do coexist.

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They're wrapping Maria

in this white sheet.

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This is a symbol of

changing her clothes.

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In some villages they

literally change the

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outfit into a new fashionable one.

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But here, because they are

Christians, they don't want to mess

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around too much with the corpse.

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All this is so different to how I've

dealt with my father's death.

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Or so I thought.

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What did you do to your father?

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We buried him.

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Buried him, yeah.

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And then until now?

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I visit his grave sometimes.

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You visit his grave sometimes.

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You did it in a different way.

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How?

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Yeah.

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Because you visit the grave

of your father, because you

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still remember him as your father.

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And you still have an emotional

relationship with him.

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You love your father.

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Right?

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And that is the principle of manene.

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So perhaps the principles

behind rituals here are

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not very different from

most other cultures.

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Remembering our dead is something

most of us try to do.

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Torajans don't leave that to chance.

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And for them, there certainly

appears to be great

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comfort from their unique

rituals around death.

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