ИСТИНА

This presentation is based on my recent field study in disguise of a tourist trip, in the Central Sulawesi province of Indonesia in August 2024.The discussion is local culture, but technically, it’s an animistic religious practice. I discovered, that the discourse and modern practice of Torajan ‘culture/unrecognized religion’ aluk todolo(‘the Way of the Ancestors’), is deeply related the similar practices of many Philippine ethnic groups, such as Manobo, Ifugao, and Kankanaey. The common origin and typology of these funeral and burial practices can be traced buy the comparative method: the ritual and mythological basic of these practices are deeply rooted in Austronesian animistic substratum and ancestor veneration. This case-study found that the practice aluk todolo by Toraja is commodified by manipulating cultural and symbolic capital, in the domains of the habitus of traditional rites and ceremonies to achieve economic goals through the unique funeral practice. The conclusions of this study reflect the symbiosis of the traditional practices and late capitalism. The future goals of the same topic can be seen as a similar field research in the Philippines.