The Thread of Life: Toraja Reflections on the Life Cycle

Chapter 6: The Cycle of Life in Toraja

191 chapter 6 The Cycle of Life in Toraja Edward Bruner has noted that we must not confuse life as lived with either life as experienced or life as told. According to Bruner (1984, 7): “A life as lived is what actually happens. A life as experienced consists of images, feelings, sentiments, desires, thoughts, and meanings known to the person whose life it is. One can never know directly what another individual is experiencing, although we all interpret clues and make inferences about the experience of others. A life as told, a life history, is a narrative, influenced by the cultural conventions of telling, by the audience, and by the social context.” While it is important for the observer to keep in mind these analytic distinctions, one also does well to remember that the people who describe and report their lives often do not make such distinctions. That is, the narrators usually believe that they are conveying the way life was actually lived or experienced; they usually do not think of themselves as merely presenting a culturally shaped narrative or story about life. But, in any case, lives can be viewed from more than one perspective . In the following two sections, we provide a general overview of the life course in Toraja, followed by a description of the life cycle that provides more of a sense of the flavor of life in Toraja, as subjectively experienced by our respondents and informants. Finally, we summarize some of the relational issues that Toraja individuals struggle with throughout their lives. An Overview of the Life Course After birth, infants are usually carefully attended to by their parents or other adult caretakers for at least a year and then are given over more and more to the care of older siblings or other preadult caretakers. Up until the time children develop sufficient motor skills to enable them to carry out simple household tasks, they are 192 Chapter 6 generally indulged and catered to. After the development of such skills, however, they are strongly encouraged to take a more active part in household life. They learn to dry and husk rice, carry water, feed pigs and chickens, herd buffalo, wash clothes and dishes, and care for younger children. Nowadays, almost all children begin school at six or seven years of age. Those with enough money and family resources will continue their education through high school, and some may even go on to college, but, for many, formal education comes to an end after grade or middle school. Concurrently with attending school, children are encouraged to assume more household responsibilities—including cooking, the harvesting of rice, and gardening—and they begin to develop social networks and friendships, both in school and out of school, that may last throughout life. Despite growing responsibilities at home, this is a period of emerging independence and autonomy in Toraja lives. Children learn to feed and fend for themselves while herding buffalo or gardening, and more and more of their work and leisure activities are conducted with peers rather than with parents or caretakers . It was during this period that boys once voluntarily scarred their forearms with burning embers to demonstrate their courage and masculinity. The emergence and consolidation of autonomy continues into adolescence. At or near puberty, adolescents may begin devoting considerable amounts of time and energy to courtship activities. Formerly , this involved attending funerals or other rituals or celebrations where potential partners could be found or, for boys, nightly visits to the villages and homes of girls. Such activities continue today, but youths now also spend time composing and sending love letters to one another. Formerly, courtship activities were generally preceded by certain rites of passage: teeth filing for both boys and girls; ear piercing for girls; and supercision for boys. Supercision continues today but is now often performed on individuals in a health clinic, rather than among informal groups of friends in the village, as was formerly the case. Courtship activities usually evolve into a pattern of sequential relationships in which individuals may court or even live with a number of partners before eventually finding one—or having one found for them—whom they marry and with whom they have children. Adulthood proper is usually thought to commence, regardless The Cycle of Life in Toraja 193 of chronological age, when one begins having and raising children. At this point in life, people begin establishing independent households...