Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 12. (Budapest, 1970)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM — MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Bodrogi, Tibor: The Art of the Sadang Toriadja in Central Celebes

the clan; among the Sadang Toradja, however, this is the most important one. Its significance is well illustrated by the jocose but apposite remark made by a Toradja: ''There is but a single outstanding event in the life of a Toradja: his death or rather his burial." As elsewhere in Indonesia, burial has two phases among the Toradja. The corpse, placed in a receptacle carved from a longitudinally bisected tree trunk, is kept in the house until the bones are completely denuded. The other half of the trunk is then put on the receptacle, the coffin wrappedi in cloth and kept so until the considerable amount of food-stuffs (water buffalo, pig, chicken, rice and palm wine) necessary for the funeral ceremony have been collected. The kinspeople, too, contribute to this collection. All alimentary contributions are then carried round in a solemn procession at the ceremony; the procession is headed by three warriors armed with lance, shield and sword. Preparations for the feast are started weeks, even months before ceremony. The contrivance for the transportation of the coffin is constructed, and work for the erection of building to accomodate the invited kinspeople and their families is taken in hand. There they live during the ceremony lasting for several days. The number of the invited totalled some 500 at the ceremony attended by me. The buildings occupying one long and two short sides of an oblong space are usually erected at a site where aligned or circulary positioned large monoliths exist. The cooking house is behind the dwelling houses, while the dais with the coffin Fig. 3. Memorial statues of the deceased, Sadang Toradja, Central Celebes