Tongkonan (Toraja)

Tongkonan is the ancestral house of the Toraja people of Tana Toraja, in the highlands of South Sulawesi, and it is arguably Indonesia's most photographed traditional building after Bali's temples. The name comes from tongkon, meaning to sit, a reference to the house's role as the place where members of an extended family gather. Structurally, a tongkonan is unmistakable: a boat-shaped, oversized saddleback roof sweeps up into dramatically upswept gables at both ends, set on a frame of wooden piles assembled with traditional tongue-and-groove joinery rather than nails. Building one is a serious undertaking. A crew of about ten workers needs roughly three months to raise a large tongkonan, followed by another month of carving and painting the exterior walls in red, black, cream and yellow, colours associated with prosperity, fertility and ritual sacrifice. Traditionally this level of investment, and the right to build a tongkonan at all, belonged only to Torajan nobility. Three tiers existed beneath that: tongkonan layuk for the highest authority, tongkonan pekamberan for family-group leaders, and tongkonan batu for ordinary noble families, while commoners lived in smaller houses called banua. The clearest outward sign of status is the row of real buffalo horns mounted vertically up the front gable, accumulated one by one at funeral ceremonies, since each sacrificed buffalo adds another horn to the stack. Tongkonan remain the ritual centre of Torajan funeral rites, among the most elaborate death ceremonies anywhere in the world, and clan members return to their family tongkonan for these events even after moving away for work or study. Today, dozens of tongkonan clusters survive around Rantepao and Makale in Tana Toraja, with Kete Kesu and Palawa among the best-preserved and most visited villages, where the buildings continue to be maintained even though corrugated zinc has increasingly replaced traditional thatch on some roofs. The tongkonan at Ke'te' Kesu' is reputed to be 500 years old, so old that no direct descendant of its founder can be traced to hold the title that goes with the house.