Tag Archives: sapundu

Rungan Hulu

I last wrote about the very interesting betang (longhouse) at Tumbang Malahoi. But actually the whole area of the Upper Rungan River (Rungan Hulu) was interesting, so I thought I’d share some pictures from our travels up there with Dodi and Yon.

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By Day 10 of our trip, the sometimes-abysmal roads of Gunung Mas were taking a toll, even on the rugged red Land Cruiser. We were pleased that it had been equipped with new tyres before we started out. But since then, apart from collecting a fair amount of mud inside and out, we’d lost a wheel bay cover and two solid rubber blocks from the suspension. However Dodi was able to engineer some temporary fixes and we carried on.

So here’s our Toyota, parked on the boulevard in Rabamrang village, where we had gone in the hope of meeting up with a local rotan (rattan) craftsman.

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Unfortunately he was ill, but we did get to see some of his handmade backpack baskets (and we ended up purchasing the one that Karen is holding in the photo above right.)

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Just outside the village of Jangkit, we met a group of teenagers who were trawling for fish and edible crustaceans in a small muddy stream. They immersed their basket fish-traps (saok) repeatedly and were actually catching reasonable quantities of small fish and little molluscs, which they would then transfer to a bucket to carry back home. It was all done with much hilarity and joking, especially when the bules  (white people) showed up.

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Pak Yuner (though everyone calls him ‘Bapa Honda’) is 76 years old, and was born in Tumbang Malahoi. He makes long cylindrical fish-traps like the one under construction in the photo above (known as a buwu) out of rotan (rattan). He also makes mandau (the ubiquitous Dayak sword/machete), a couple of handles of which are also visible.

Dodi bought one of his buwu, which was then strapped on top of the roofrack of our old red Land Cruiser. The long cylinder made the 4WD look a a bit like a mobile rocket launcher!

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The roads in Kalimantan are tough on bikes, but some bikes are kept in service for longer than you’d believe possible, often through improvised repairs and ‘bush mechanic’ skills. This ageing Yamaha could have been older than the house it was parked next to.

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This is a not a photo of our Land Cruiser at the end of our 10 days’ travelling in Gunung Mas, but a ‘retired’ model that we came upon along the way (near Tumbang Jutuh). Dodi and Yon examined it with interest, concluding that it could be made serviceable again.

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Here’s Yon, warmed by the late afternoon light on the bridge at Tumbang Malahoi.

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Karen on the bridge at Tumbang Malahoi, with electrical poles, pantar panjang and coconut palm trunks behind her.

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Pak Nirwan took us on a walk into the forest near Malahoi which he knows well, and where there are very many useful plants – for those who know what to look for!

We also visited Pak Nirwan’s pondok (hut) at the edge of the forest, so he could feed the large pig that he keeps there. He’s very proud of that pig.

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To many Dayak people, the forest is the ultimate sustainable resource, providing them with food and drink, medicine, tools, building materials and more. (When we were trekking in the forest in Kelabit, our guide Petrus referred to it as the “jungle supermarket”!)

In the forest with Pak Nirwan and Dodi (above), Karen was most interested in seeing nyamu trees (pohon nyamu). The bark of this tree species (Artocarpus elasticus) was removed, soaked, pounded and cut, and used to make range of traditional Dayak clothing.

Baju kulit kayu (bark clothing) is now only worn during certain Kaharingan ceremonies, and as clothing for performances in traditional costume.

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A small digression, by way of example. The photo above is not from Tumbang Malahoi, but from the Isen Mulang Festival in Palangkaraya last year. The dancing Dayak warrior (who incidentally was standing on the roof of a fast-moving boat) is wearing a vest made from kulit pohon nyamu (bark of the nyamu tree).

He is also sporting the beak, casque and feathers of a Rhinoceros Hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros) atop his head, and tail-feathers of the Great Argus (Argusianus argus) protruding from his neck and shoulders.

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Tumbang Kuayan village is a little further up the Rungan River from Malahoi. Currently the road from from Malahoi ends on the opposite side of the river, because the bridge is too damaged for cars to cross over, so the village is quiet.

Villagers in Tumbang Kuayan still grow their own rice using slash-and-burn techniques on the ladang (swidden) areas in the forest. The harvested rice is carried back to village in sturdy basket backpacks (as above right), and threshed by hand to separate the grain ready for cooking.

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There are LOTS of children in Tumbang Kuayan, and 20 or more of them followed us as we walked around the village. At first they looked variously stunned or terrified by our presence, but they relaxed once they realised that we were just weird, not scary, and some resumed their games.

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These boys were playing a game of battling wooden spinning tops that we have now seen being played in a number of places, including inside a longhouse over in West Kalimantan. Along the Kahayan River they call it bayang. There’s a sort-of similar game called balugu, which, instead of spinning wooden tops, is played with tempurung kelapa (coconut shells).

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There were some really nice sapundu in Tumbang Kuayan, including this spectacular group. As is common, they were all facing towards the river, perhaps awaiting the arrival of a canoe?

Each sapundu is made from a single trunk of kayu ulin. If there is a fork or large branch in the tree, the craftsman will often take advantage of it to incorporate an extension of some sort. The outstretched arm and the tiger in the photo above are examples of this.

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There’s not a lot of forest left in the 4,172 sq km of Gunung Mas (except in the mountainous parts in the far north – and even up there there is a network of logging roads. An ever-growing expanse of the district has been clear-felled and given over to plantations of kelapa sawit – oil palms (Elaeis guineensis).

Commercially grown oil palms grow up to 20 metres in height, and can be productive for 20 to 30 years. So it’s therefore surprising to see that such a large proportion of the plantations consist of young palms like the ones in the photo above. This is an industry that’s rapidly expanding…

…and eating up just about everything as it grows.

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Tumbang Malahoi

After Tumbang Anoi and Tumbang Korik, the final destination on our ‘Tur Tiga Betang’ (our ‘Three Longhouse Tour’) was the Betang Toyoi in the village of Tumbang Malahoi.

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Malahoi is located in the upper reaches of the Rungan River, which we consider to be ‘our’ river, as it runs by here where we are living, downstream at Sei Gohong. It’s about 122km to the north of the provincial capital of Palangkaraya.

It’s a very interesting Dayak Ngaju village, home to large numbers of Kaharingan sandung (ossuaries), sapundu (carved ceremonial poles) and tall pantar panjang (like the hornbill-topped pantar above left).

It’s also home to many traditional craftspeople, such as the 90-year-old man (above right), who has only recently retired from making rattan baskets and other crafts. (“My fingers have become sick” he said – it looked like arthritis.)

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Despite its name, the village of Tumbang Malahoi is not on the Malahoi River (as you were no doubt thinking…), but in fact is at the junction of the Baringei and Rungan Rivers. The reason for this discrepancy is apparently that the founders of the village (the Toyoi family, who also built the longhouse) originally came from West Kalimantan near the headwaters of the Melawi / Malahoi river. They wanted to retain their connection to the ancestral homelands, and even brought some soil and water from there to help maintain the link.

Whatever the name, it’s an attractive river, and full of water when we were there in the middle of the wet season.

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Tumbang Malahoi is best known for its lovely and well-preserved old longhouse (called a betang in the Dayak Ngaju language). Construction of the Betang Toyoi was completed in 1869, after a year of work by the community (gotong royong). Since then it has housed many generations of the Toyoi family.

Its floor stands around two metres above the ground, supported by 26 heavy wooden posts. It’s 37 metres long. The walls, like those of the longhouse at Tumbang Korik, are made from kulit kayu pendu (bark of the pendu tree – Polyalthia glauca?)

The betang was built by Bungai Toyoi. He was a friend and supporter of the Banjar Sultan Muhammad Seman (1862 -1905), who fought (and lost) against the Dutch colonial forces in the Barito War. (Such an alliance between a Dayak Kaharingan chief and a Banjar Muslim Sultan was not uncommon at the time. Perhaps nothing unites people better than having a common enemy!)

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And later, during the struggle for independence from Dutch rule in the 1940s, the betang at Tumbang Malahoi was for a time the regional headquarters of the Gerakan Revolusi Rakyat Indonesia (the ‘Indonesian People’s Revolutionary Movement’)

It’s hard to imagine now… but this place has HISTORY. Nowadays it’s a peaceful place, maintained by a warm and gentle family – themselves descendants of Bungai Toyoi. Head of the household is 59-year-old Ibu Aniema Nanyan Toyoi (but known as Mina Indu Boni). She lives there with her elder sister (Mina Indu Gandi) and mother-in-law Tambi Indu Erie, along with her 34-year-old son Boni and Tri Septiani, his wife of three years.

They were friendly, generous and entertaining hosts over the three nights we stayed there.

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Just inside the entrance of the betang are six illustrated panels, carved and painted into the ceiling. Just outside the door are another four panels, on the underside of the eave.

These ten panels (yes, I know there’s only nine in the photo above) relate to stories of the family’s past intertwined with symbols from Ngaju mythology and encounters with the spirit world. The tree in the panel at top left in the above photo, for example, is the Sawang Ngandang – the ‘Tree of Promises’. It is so called because of its use in wedding ceremonies, where the bride and groom exchange their promises before God, family and nature.

The panels are considered to be significant enough that reproduction drawings have been made and are on display at the Museum Balanga in Palangkaraya.

Mina Indu Boni has carefully written, in 62 pages of neat longhand, a valuable and detailed account of the history of the longhouse, the Toyoi family tree, and descriptions and explanations of the panels and various sculptures at the betang. It’s mostly in Bahasa Indonesia, but with chunks of Dayak Ngaju language also. She kindly allowed Karen to make a copy, and we are now keen to get assistance in translating the large sections that we don’t fully understand!

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There is usually only a single entrance to a betang, via a log with steps cut into it (known as a hejan). The hejan at Tumbang Malahoi features two stunning patung (statues), one on either side, about 2 metres high. Each one depicts a tiger (harimau) with a Dayak warrior sitting astride it, and a crocodile (buaya) crawling up.

The patung harimau at Tumbang Malahoi are old, but in fact they are only reproductions of the original statues, which have been removed and are safely stored within the longhouse. Which is just as well. Just six days before we arrived at Malahoi, and during a loud thunderstorm, thieves came in the night and took the companion statue to the one above, by sawing it off at the base.

Sadly, such thefts of Dayak sapundu and patung are not uncommon (we were shown another sapundu that had been sawn off when we in Bangkal village). They are likely to be ‘commissioned’ thefts, with the objects stolen to order for some wealthy collector. The rewards for the thief must be great, because in Indonesia, getting caught while committing a property crime often results in swift, summary and brutal punishment.

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A dozen sapundu pillars, each one carved from a log of kayu ulin (Bornean ironwood), stand in a row in front of the betang.

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I took a series of ‘portraits’ of them – partly as a record in case any of them get stolen like the harimau statue.

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As the evening descended, the row of pantar across the road from the betang were nicely silhouetted against the darkening sky. The pantar (made from kayu ulin, of course) have been described to us as ‘highways to heaven’, symbolised by the flying hornbill bird which sits on top of most of them. We understand them to be erected to honour the life (and death) of some particularly notable member of the community.

As I was taking this photo, a motorbike came down the road from the left side, then turned to cross the bridge. With a 20 second tripod exposure, it laid down a light trail of its headlight transforming into a red taillight as it passed.

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It was getting dark, and stars started to appear – and the mosquitoes too!. So we went back inside for dinner, leaving all of the sandung, sapundu, patung harimau and the pantar panjang to watch over the Betang Toyoi longhouse at Tumbang Malahoi.

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The Sapundu of Bangkal village

We recently travelled to the Dayak village of Bangkal on the Seruyan River, 300km to the southwest of our Kalimantan ‘home’, to attend a Tiwah – Dayak funeral ceremony. It was our fourth Tiwah – the previous ones were on the Kahayan River at Kampuri, and on the Katingan River at Tewang Rangkang and Tewang Rangas. Like the others, it was extraordinary and included many rituals unique to the local area.

But I’ll write about the Tiwah at another time – I haven’t yet figured out how to compress the five days and nights of ceremonies (not to mention my 2100 photos!) down into a manageable and meaningful narrative. In the meantime, I wanted to write a little about a related topic – the sapundu of Bangkal.

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Sapundu are wooden poles, usually about 30-40cm diameter and 2 – 3 meters tall, with a stylised human figure carved at the top, and often various other objects, motifs, symbols and decorative elements carved below. In the ‘Hindu’ Kaharingan (Dayak animist) religion of Central Kalimantan, one or more sapundu is made for the important ceremony of Tiwah. The Tiwah is the biggest and most important ritual event in the Kaharingan religion, as it is when the soul of the deceased is helped on their journey from the mortal world to the ‘prosperous village’, the Dayak heaven of Lewu Tatau*.

* [Actually, Lewu Tatau is just a shorthand for the full name of the Kaharingan heaven in the sacred Sangiang language of the Dayak Ngaju, “Lewu Tatau Habaras Bulau, Habusung Hintan, Hasahep Bati Lantimpung, Hakarangan Bawak Lamiang, Hapasir Manas Marajan Bulau-Lewu Tatau Dia Rumpung Tulang Rundung Raja Isin, Dia Kamalesu Uhat”, which apparently translates marvellously as the “Prosperous Village of Gold Sand, of Diamond Beaches, Carpeted with Silk, of Jasper Pebbles, Heaps of Jasper Beads – Grand Place Where Bones Never Decay Carrying the Burden of the Glorious Flesh, Where the Muscles Never Tire”.]

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The sapundu of Bangkal village are special because of their great variety and quality. And also because there are just so many of them – more than we’ve seen anywhere else, in front of dozens of houses in this village of 2,600 people.

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A local artisan (a tukang kayu) will carve the sapundu. Often the figure carved will resemble the appearance of the deceased person. A man who had been soldier may be depicted in uniform, a proud mother may be holding a child etc. But the tukang kayu is free to carve whatever form they are inspired to, and the sapundu may not even be the same gender as the person it commemorates! (The sapundu in the photo above was not actually in Bangkal village, but was being carved in the village of Tumbang Manggu, on the Katingan River.)

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During the Tiwah, buffalo and cattle to be sacrificed are tethered to the sapundu with a rattan halter. Nearby a sankaraya is erected out of tall bamboo, adorned with offerings for the spirits (of rice, meat, flowers, cigarettes, baram rice wine and sirih), gongs, spears and various other objects. In the photo above right, a second, smaller, sapundu can be seen lying on the ground.

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The sapundu and the sankaraya are the focus of ceremonial dancing and other ritual activities during the Tiwah.

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Sapundu are frequently located in front of, or adjacent to, the sandung containing the bones, ashes or body (depending on local practice) of the deceased. Often this will be one of the ‘secondary’ sapundu i.e. one that was not used for tethering sacrificial buffalo or cattle.

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As one sandung may be used to hold the remains of a number or family members (sort of like a family mausoleum), the sandung can end up surrounded by a cluster of sapundu, of various styles, ages and states of repair.

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A sapundu should be made from kayu ulin (Bornean ‘ironwood’, Eusideroxylon zwageri), a remarkable but now rare forest tree. Ulin is a dense timber with a fine and even grain, and is highly durable, being resistant to water, insects, fungi and bacteria. But a sapundu which has stood outside in the tough Kalimantan climate for a hundred years or more is going to show signs of decay, and to display an attractive patina of age as it starts to break up.

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The timber cracks and gets colonised by moss and vines.

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Families move or simply forget, and there may be nobody left who remembers the name of the person that the sapundu was built to commemorate.

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Over time, they may be reclaimed by the forest.

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At night, the impassive, staring faces of the sapundu evoke a very different mood.

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With little artificial lighting, a moonless night in a Kalimantan village can be quite dark indeed. Locate the sapundu in a forest clearing, add in some rumbling sounds of wet season thunder, and it’s not difficult to start imagining the presence of ancestral spirits and jin, roh and hantu (spirits and ghosts).

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Sapundu aren’t the only, or indeed the tallest Kaharingan ceremonial pillars to be found in a Dayak village. The very tall poles in the above left picture are pantar panjang. They are rarely built nowadays, but old ones are still to be found, usually with hornbill birds figured on top. They commemorate the Tiwah of some important or highly renowned person.

Equally impressive, though slightly less lofty, are the pantar sanggaran, like the one on the above right. They incorporate one or more Chinese jars (balanga), and have cross-bars in the shape of dragons (naga), with four upwards-pointing spears on each side. The pole itself may have figures of people or animals carved into it. At one such pantar (sporting three balanga) we were told that each balanga jar signifies a head taken by the owner – but we cannot vouch for the truth of that… and anyway – that’s another story.

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The rains have arrived, the fires and smoke have gone for another year, and life has returned to what passes for normal here in Central Kalimantan (KalTeng). In fact the wet season storms arrived with such gusto that they demolished much of the power line from South Kalimantan. As a result, KalTeng has had little or no electricity, telephone service, internet or even piped water for the past few weeks. Normal service appears to have been resumed the past couple of days, and so now we await further unexpected developments. Meanwhile…

I’ve previously written about the Tiwah (Dayak funeral ritual) that we attended back in November last year, and about another very large Tiwah in August this year. Both were quite extraordinary. When we heard that another mass Tiwah was being held in the village of Kampuri, we quickly made arrangements to attend. Kampuri is a village of around 600 families, in the Gunung Mas region of Central Kalimantan, about three hours drive to the northeast from where we live. It’s on the Kahayan River, whereas the two earlier ceremonies were on the Katingan River to the west of here. We were very interested to see how different the Kaharingan religious practices might be.

By a happy coincidence, my workmate (and our friend) Ibu Andarini is from Kampuri, and she very kindly provided us with transport, accommodation and great company for the main ceremonial days (Tubuh Basir Muduk and Tubuh Ngarahang Tulang) of the Tiwah. We were the only non-Indonesians there.

When we first arrived, the ceremonial site had been prepared, but things were pretty quiet, so we drove an hour north to the district (Kabupaten) capital of Kuala Kurun, and stayed overnight with members of Andarini’s family there – who made us very welcome.

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Back in Kampuri early the next morning, the crowd was gathering. Musicians had started playing the gongs and drums that continued for most of the next two days. The food, snack and drink vendors had set up their temporary warungs. No less than eight gambling operations had started business – but, being (technically) illegal, they were located a discreet distance away amongst the trees behind the main proceedings. “No photos!”

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Seventeen tall painted wooden sapundu were erected, one for each of the deceased. The poles were securely planted in deep holes in the ground. On top of each one was carved a stylised representation of the deceased. One man who had served in the army, for example, was depicted in khaki and carrying a rifle. The sapundu are used to tether the buffalo and cattle that will be sacrificed during the tiwah.

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The rituals of Tiwah are part of the Dayak Kaharingan religion. Adherents of this animist faith believe that the spirit of someone who has died will stay around the village that was their home in life, and will not be able to make the journey on to the ‘Prosperous village’ (i.e. Heaven) without assistance and encouragement.

So there are prayers, music and offerings to get the assistance of beneficial spirits (and to repel the malevolent ones). Chickens, pigs, cattle and buffalo are sacrificed, and the animals’ spirits will also accompany the deceased and support them when they arrive at the ancestral spirit village.

The gods and spirits are very finicky about protocol, and the complicated rituals must be performed exactly if they are to be successful. So one or more basir, experts in the minutiae of Kaharingan ritual and the sacred language of Sangiang, are required to preside over proceedings and to keep it all on track. At Kampuri, there were nine of them, mostly wearing rattan caps with the word ‘basir’ woven in so there could be doubt of their role and status. They were an amiable group, keen to try and explain things to us whenever time and our limited bahasa language skills allowed. And, like all Indonesians, they were ready to pose for photos at the drop of a (rattan) hat.

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There weren’t nearly as many prayers and songs as we had seen at the Tiwah on the Katingan River, but the ones that did occur were quite beautiful, in an extended, hypnotically repetitive cycle of solo voice and chorus responses. The little drums (katambung) that they play are significant, and their use is one of the things that distinguish the basir of the Kahayan from the pisur of the Katingan. Their prayers, chants and music went on well into the night.

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By day, the crowd was generally more boisterous than those we saw on the Katingan. There were frequent outbreaks of hujan tanah (literally, ‘raining dirt’) where clods of soil (perhaps later mixed with some buffalo faeces and blood…) would be picked up and lobbed across the heads of the crowd. After I got targeted and pelted a couple of times, including one quite solid missile that hit me square in the glasses, I expressed my clear displeasure and invited the throwers to come over and discuss the matter in more detail. That seemed to be the end of it.

More benign were the people who moved through the crowd, applying white rice flour paste to the faces of all present. We are not certain of the ritual significance of this paste, but the lady below made a fine advertisement for its beautifying effect.

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On each day, the first animals to be sacrificed were the pigs (babi). Unlike on the Katingan, where the pigs were slaughtered very quickly and relatively painlessly by a knife to the heart, the largest babi Kampuri were speared while held in a bamboo enclosure. Each family member took a turn, and so it took a little while, and the squeals of the indignant pigs were heartbreaking to hear.

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The mass Tiwah was held for the souls of some 17 people, and there was a major sacrifice – usually a buffalo (kerbau), but sometimes a cow (sapi) – for each one. The buffalo can cost up to nearly the equivalent of AU$1000, so it is a very major expense for each of the families that provide them. The decorated animals are brought out one by one, and tied to the appropriate sapundu with a halter (saluang) made from rattan.

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Disconcertingly, they would frequently fix their gaze on me, as if imploringly asking for help

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The basir and key family members formed a ring around the sapundu, each one now with a buffalo attached, and performed the slow dance of Ngangjun, Pakai selendang, which invites the spirits to descend to the village and take up temporary residence in the sapundu.

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The family members then take turns to spear the buffalo. The spear (tombak) is long and decorated with red fabric and pink and white chicken feathers. Afterward, the spearer was given a glass of rice wine (or beer), which was downed quickly then he (or she) would face east, raise their head and let out a loud ‘Woooo!!!’.

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The spearing continues until the beast can no longer stand up, at which point a wooden block is placed under the beast’s head, and its throat is cut. Unlike the Katingan Tiwah, there was less interest in collecting the spilt blood, or washing hands and feet ‘clean’ in it.

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A batik cloth is thrown over the animal, the family members all gather and squat down around it, and a basir waves a clump of leaves over their heads.

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Small pieces of the rattan that had tied the buffalo to the sapundu, or even bits of the animal itself (lips and nose) were collected by people to take away as good luck talismans. At the completion of ceremony, the animal is hauled away, for butchering, distribution and cooking. Not an easy task.

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Its even harder to load onto the back of a ute. But, like most things in Indonesia, it can be accomplished if you have enough people, a couple of basic bits of equipment, and a lot of shouted advice.

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The heads were taken away to be stored and displayed at the main ceremonial area.

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The Tiwah is a ‘secondary funeral’. That is, it is held for people who had died and had been buried some time previously – often many years earlier. The bones of the deceased are exhumed from the site of burial, carefully cleaned and placed on fine cloth in small wooden trays or coffins. They are then taken to the specially built wooden structures (sandung) where they join the bones of other family members who had pre-deceased them. All going well with the performance of the Tiwah, their souls join the ancestors in the ‘Prosperous’ village’.

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Our understanding and appreciation of the Kampuri Tiwah was greatly assisted by Pak Goldison (2nd from left below), who was the basir chiefly responsible for the organisation of the Tiwah. He was a very busy man, but he went out of his way to ensure that we were comfortable, well informed and well supplied with drinks and food throughout our stay.

And of course without Ibu Andarini (3rd from right) we probably wouldn’t have got there at all. She ensured that we had a place to stay (there is no commercial accommodation in Kampuri), that we didn’t miss any of the key events, and that we were made welcome by her family and friends in the village.

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And when it’s all over, it’s time to go back home. Five on a bike? No problem.

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More of my photos of the Kampuri Tiwah here.