The Torajan dolls

THE

LANCET

The Torajan Dolls

In 1995, I was in the village of Rantepao in Tana Toraja, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Wherever I travel I look for dolls of the elderly. In Indonesia, I had no trouble finding them. The dolls in this photograph are replicas of the life-size effigies called tau tau, which are created on the death of a Torajan of noble ancestry. Tau tau are believed to hold the ghost of the deceased. Among the featured tourist attractions of Tana Toraja are the caves cut in limestone cliffs that hold hundreds of tau tau, with the oldest dating back centuries. Although the dolls in this photograph were carved for the tourist market, they demonstrate the skill of Torajan woodcarving and woodworking, which is valued throughout Indonesia. The dolls reminded me of the elderly people I saw walking around the villages of South Sulawesi, in stark contrast to the elderly--some barebreasted--whom 1 saw in Bali. Marilyn Spievak Brodwick

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Literature and Ageing • Vol 354 • November

° 1999