Tau Tau, Ethnic Puppet from Toraja Land

[caption id="attachment_19503" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Ancient Tau Tau by komodoisland-tours.com"][/caption] Upon entering Toraja, people will easily find wooden puppet wearing colorful traditional clothes displayed in souvenir stores. It is called Tau Tau, local name for the effigy. Ritually, it functions as important equipment in local burial ceremony of the Torajan. Tau Tau, shifting from its original use, is now widely sold as souvenir. The name Tau Tau derived from the word "Tau", in local language meaning "person". The repetition adds the sense "similar to" to the word, or in other word "personification of the dead". Instead of the physically, Tau Tau personifies the dead spiritually. Tau Tau is used in burial ceremony according to Aluk To Dolo, the ancient asceticism of Torajan. This belief teaches Torajan to believe the existence of life after death. Tau Tau, therefore, symbolizes a person who leaves his vulnerable human body and enters the after world. Ritually, Tau Tau is divided into 3 categories depending on the social status of the dead. For person from lower rank, Tau Tau is made of bambo, so called Tau Tau Lampa. For middle and higher social status, Tau Tau is made of Kapok wood and Jack fruit wood respectively. The puppet is carved into human shape and given miniature of traditional clothes. [caption id="attachment_19506" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Tau Tau by my-indonesia.info"][/caption] The process of making Tau Tau starts as Ma'tundan procession begins. Ma'tundan is the second phase of burial ceremony that can be held even years after the first phase. It is when the corpse is taken from Tongkonan, traditional house of Toraja, serving as the temporary burial site and placed on the caves high on limestone cliffs. The process of Tau Tau making starts from drawing the figure on a piece of wood. After that, the maker begins carving the wood in a sequence order from the head, body, then the legs. Every Tau Tau is made in a realistic style with details representing the dead's physical characteristic. During the Tau Tau making for a person from higher social class, the ritual is accompanied by sacrificing pigs. A pig is slaughtered when the maker begin carving hands, another is on the beginning of making leg. The sacrifice designate the birth of the dead in the after life. The last pig is slaughtered during Massabu, ritual to celebrate the finish of Tau Tau making. Tau Tau puppets available in any souvenir shop, however, represents no one. They are made without no offering; puppet makers sometime pray to ask permission from anchestor. Among plenty kinds of handycraft, Tau Tau is probably Torajan's most ethnically venerable.