The Torajans of Sulawesi, an ethnic group that lives to die

By Torajan tradition, he isn’t really dead. He’s just sick. The late monarch won’t be gone for good until he has been laid to rest with traditional rites featuring the slaughter of scores of water buffaloes, at least one of them a rare spotted specimen.

The unhurried passage from this world is central to the culture of Torajans, an ethnic group in southern Sulawesi island whose customs are a hybrid of ancient tribal traditions and Protestant Christianity.

The dead wait months, even years, for their last rites . Corpses used to be dried with herbal elixirs and smoldering fires, but the old ways have largely died out, replaced by washtub embalming fluid made with formaldehyde.

“Torajans,” Sambolinggi, 56, said cheerfully, “they live to die.”

It has taken his family five years to agree on a send-off befitting Puang Sambolinggi, which is now planned for October. The farewell is shaping up to be the last grand funeral in Torajan history, the final chapter of a royal history that dates back centuries.

The dead are always placed in a room at the back so they can face south, where the ancestors live in heaven. The homes’ central pillars are decorated with a row of horns from water buffaloes slaughtered at family funerals.

A good buffalo is a Torajan status symbol, and people go through life pleased that their burials won’t be rushed, leaving mourners time to find the cash for fine specimens to slaughter. “We have to wait until the whole family is ready,” Sambolinggi said. “For instance, there’s me and my siblings. Perhaps I am able to contribute a number of buffaloes, while my siblings still have to wait and save some money. We all have to agree, because for this funeral the number we’re talking about isn’t small.”

Family members have also...