GENERAL INFORMATION
Land and People Tana Toraja is situated 310 km north of UjungPandang, capital of South Sulawesi Province. It can be reached by road, requiring a 7 hour drive from UjungPandang. As soon as one reaches the entrance gate of Toraja Land ( 30 km before Makale, Capital of Toraja ) its typical geographical characteristics are visible.
Tana Toraja is a mountainous area. The slopes of the limestone mountains are covered with various kinds of bamboo, pines trees, coffee and many kinds of tropica plants. The wet rice terraces and clove bushes also beautify the area.
The regency's lowest elevation - 300 m above sea-level is the Lebannu river valley. The highest elevation, however, is the mountain of Telando-Lando ( 2.884 m ) in the district of Rinding Allo. Rantepao and Makale are situated 755 m above the sea level.
The total area of Taraja is 3.205.77 km2. According to the 1995 cencus, the population of the regency numbered 367,371 people, living in two towns ( makale and Rantepao ), and in 65 villages. For the population distribution in each district and population density in the regency in 1995, see table 1 below .
It is important to note that more than a million of Torajans live outside Toraja Land. Most of them comprise job seekers, University students, teachers, civil-servants, soldiers and business people.
As a tropical region, the climate of Toraja is distinctly sea-sonal in that there is an east monsonn season, ( June through September ), which is controlled by continental air masses, and a wet monsoon season ( December through March ), which is controlled by the moisture laden maritime air masses. The months of April and May, and October and November constiture transitional periods between; ;the two seasons.
Based on readings taken in Makale, capital of Toraja, the highest temperature on record is 26C and lowest temperature is 14 C. Taraja has typically high value of humidity of which the relative maximum humidity is 86% and the minimum is 82%.
RITUAL SPEECH AND TO MINAA
Torajans speak Toraja Language. Linguists such as Salombe ( 1978 ) refers to language spoken in contemporary Toraja as the Sa'dan Toraja Language which consists of three dialects ; the Makale-Rantepao dialect, spoken in the east of Toraja, the Saluputti-Boggakaradeng dialect spoken in the west of Toraja and Sillanan-Gandang Batu Dialect spoken in the south of Toraja.
It should be noted that like any other speech community, the Toraja language speakers are extremely aware of the imoortance of selecting types of register ( speech varieties ) appropriate to different types of social contexts. In speaking activity, they must select the type of register that is congruent with the social context in which it occurs. They express this congruity with the concepts of buangan kada,"the throwing ( uttering ) of words" which must be compatible with torroan kada, "the words in the riht place ) context" . They further reinforce this attitude by the use of a negative expression tae nadi pokada punaal tu kada, "words must be uttered arbitrarily ( unselectively )". Within this conceptual framework, the members of the Toraja speech community mutually share linguistic norms which lead them to identify and differentiate significantly the socially appropriate speech used in categories of non-ritual context and the speech used in a ritual context.
In the non - ritual contexts such as in daily conversation and in public meeting, the speakers communicate in comprehensible, ordinary and low registers. However, such low register ( ritual speech ) which is difficult for the commoners to understand because it incorporates into its lexicon florid expressions, parallelisms, metaphors and highly elaborated speech forms. It is a high form of speech which mastered by those who possess extensive knowledge ( to minaa ), who stand as mediators between human beings and supernatural beings. It, therefore, must have a queen - like ( madatu ) quality because it is related to the words of ancestors ( kada - kada nene' to dolo ). The use of such ritual speeches could be observed in the performance of badong ( chant for the deceased ), retteng ( chanted poetry ), passomba tedong ( laudation of buffalo ) , etc.
These ritual speech forms are spoken by the to minaa. The ability of the to minaa to make ritual speeches consists not only in their cognitive ritual knowledge but also in their loquacity in the ritual performances. It derives from the knowledge of words that form pairs ( kada-kada situru' takinna, "words with their pairs" ) and the ability to produce tests in performance that branch out and foliage out ( kada mengtake mendaun ). In fact, it is every to minaa's goal to have bure'tek pombulu lila, "to have a tongue that is going like tek, tek, tek ( loquacious)" . In order to archieve this goal, he has to observe many taboos such as not to continue eating when the lamp is out.
Thus the ability to produce the ritual speeches into effective message forms defines the quality of a to mina. In native's perspective, there are to minaas who are inexperienced and not loquacious ( to minaa tampuran ) and therefore, disfavored for their inefficacious words, and there are those who are very knowledgeable and powerful ( mabanne ) and therefore, revered for their pragmatic efficacy.
Like any other regional language of other ethnic groups in Indonesia, Torja language is different from Bahasa Indonesia ( National Language ). Although they differ, they belong to the family of Austronesian languages which are sometimes called agglutinative languages. These languages are mainly characterized by the use of affixes ( prefix, infix and suffix ).
In addition to Bahasa Indonesia, two or three foreign languages (such as English, French or German), are , at the moment, taught in schools. In former times, when Indonesia proclaimed its independence, regional languages were not taught in schools due to the country's unification policy. During that period Bahasa Indonesia was intensively taught in schools and thus even old people in Toraja may undertand it a bit.
HISTORY
ORIGIN AND NAME
Anthropoligists classify the Toraja of South Sulawesi, the Dayaks of Kalimantan and Batak of Sumatera as Proto Malayas. manay similarities among these ethnic groups and the Dongson culture lead them to conclude that they originated from Dongson, Annam or Indo China.
Beginning in 3000 B.C., migrants moved into the peninsulas and islands of South-East Asia perhaps motivated by pressure from newly arisen states in China. Some of these people passed into Indonesia, either via the Malay peninsula or through the Philippines and thus into eastern Indonesia. This group traveled in sailing boats and migrated in series of movement. They brought with them new Stone and Iron Age cultures and Austronesian languages.
Anthropologists classify these migratory people into two groups : the earlier groups were called Proto-Malayas and those who came later, Deutro-Malayas. Although they arrived at different times, in actual fact they were probably not two distinct migrations but rather a more or less continuous movement of people towards the south and south-east ( Harjono, 1971 :119 ).
Scientific research on how Toraja ancestors came into the region has yet to be under taken. According to Torajan mythology, the ancestors came via sailing vessels from the south along the Sa'dan river and settled in the Enrekang area which was formerly that part of Toraja Land. When the later group arrived they were forced to retreat into the mountainous region where access was quite difficult. They wandered ; in different groups under the leadership of Arrun ( a group of people ). According to Salombe ( 1972 ) there were 40 arruans at the time and they were coordinated by Tangdino'. It seems that arruan people ( group of people ) arrived first, to be followed later by another groups called to manurun ( people descending from heaven ). The former reigned over a wide area of Tana Toraja while the later remained in the south particularly in the federation of three vessels : Makale, sangalla' and Mengkendek. The to manurun were led by tamborolangi' who introduced the new agriculture technology, rank system and the complicated death ritual practices.
In former times, Toraja Lan was called tondok lepongan bulan tana matarik allo which means "a country of one form of administration, religion and culture as round as the sun and the moon". It is estimated that the name Toraja cme into exixtence in the 17th Century when Toraja first came into contact with outsiders. There are several interpretation concerning the origin of the name. One of them is that this name is derived from Bugis word To Ri Aja ( To means people, Ri means from, and Aja refers to the western part of the area ). So Toraja means " the people of the interior ", This name was given by Luwu people ( Bugis race ) who occupied the coastal regions.
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