Balinese culture is perhaps most known for dance,
drama and sculpture. The culture is noted for
its use of the gamelan in music.
The island is also known for its form of Wayang kulit
or Shadow play/Shadow Puppet theatre.
It also has several unique aspects related to their religions and traditions.
Balinese culture is a mix of Balinese Hindu religion
and Balinese custom.
Bali culture is totally unique and permeates through every aspect of life. The influence of Hinduism the main religion is evident in the music, drama, art, costumes and festivals which take place daily.
You’ll encounter a festival almost every day, celebrating the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Anthropologists believe that the Balinese are descended from the ancient Chinese, the Indians and Arabs from the west, and others who came to the island directly or via Java.
The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi,
Indonesia. Their population is approximately 650,000, of which 450,000 still live
in the regency of Tana Toraja (”Land of Toraja”).[1] Most of the population
is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk
(”the way”). The Indonesian government has recognized this animist belief as
Aluk To Dolo (”Way of the Ancestors”).
The word toraja comes from the Bugis language’s to riaja,
meaning “people of the uplands”.
The Dutch colonial government named the people Toraja in 1909.
[3] Torajans are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites,
burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, massive peaked-roof
traditional houses known as tongkonan, and colorful wood carvings.
Toraja funeral rites are important social events, usually attended by hundreds
of people and lasting for several days.
Before the 20th century, Torajans lived in autonomous villages,
where they practised animism and were relatively untouched by the outside world.
In the early 1900s, Dutch missionaries first worked to convert Torajan highlanders
to Christianity. When the Tana Toraja regency was further opened to the outside world
in the 1970s, it became an icon of tourism in Indonesia: it was exploited by tourism
developers and studied by anthropologists.[4] By the 1990s, when tourism peaked,
Toraja society had changed significantly, from an agrarian model — in which social
life and customs were outgrowths of the Aluk To Dolo—to a largely Christian society.
