WHILE the mere sight of a corpse can frighten most of us, one community in Indonesia loves their dead ones so much they exhume their corpses to mark their respect.
The families in Toraja in South Sulawesi believe in welcoming the spirit of a dead person back to the village of his origin.
And as a popular belief, they dig up the graves of their deceased loved ones, wash them, groom them and dress them up in fancy new clothes before walking them around in the village once every three years. They also repair or fix broken and damaged coffins.
They call the bizarre ritual of dolling up mummies Ma’nen or The Ceremony of Cleaning Corpses and practice it to honour the spirits of their ancestors.
From babies to OAPs, corpses are exhumed by the families and given proper baths, grooming session and new clothes. They are then walked in straight lines around the village and buried again.
