The Ceremony of Cleaning Corpses
An Indonesian community has begun celebrations of an annual
festival honouring the dead which sees hundreds of centuries-old corpses
exhumed, dressed in clothes and put on display, Dailymail reports.
The celebration is an annual festival in which preserved bodies of
ancestors of the Toraja, an ethnic group from the mountains of South
Sulawesi in Indonesia, are lovingly dug up from their graves as part of
the ancient Ma'nene festival. Then, the bodies are groomed, washed and
dressed in fashionable new clothes and even sunglasses before they are
paraded round the village. The locals hold the festival in high esteem.
They consider funerals the most important event of their lives, the festival is a celebration.
Photographer Herman Morrison made the trip from Indonesian island
Lombok, where he lives, to capture the peculiar ceremony on camera.
Mr Morrison, 33, said: 'I live in Lombok, Indonesia, and I travelled to Sulawesi to photograph the Ma'nene festival.
'The ritual is held yearly and is regarded as a manifestation
of the Torajanese's love for their ancestors, leaders and relatives who
have died.'
The age of the corpses varies, but some are more than 100 years
old. The bodies are taken from their graves by their families then
cleaned and washed. Their clothes are replaced and then the bodies are
put back in the ground.
'Some of the deceased men are dressed up in suits and ties. It was an amazing sight to witness.'
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