Tongkonan

Tongkonan is the traditional ancestral house type of the Torajan people of the mountainous interior of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and remains a functioning symbol of Torajan kinship and social rank rather than an archaeological remnant. Built on wooden piles and constructed almost entirely without nails, the houses are most immediately recognized by their dramatic saddle-shaped roof, its ridge sweeping upward and outward at both ends, traditionally layered from bamboo or, increasingly today, corrugated metal sheeting, over a structure whose front wall is often carved and painted with red, black, yellow and white geometric and buffalo motifs. Each tongkonan belongs to an extended family line and is the ceremonial focus of that family's life, most visibly at elaborate Torajan funeral rites where buffalo horns from sacrificed animals are mounted in rows up the house's front support post as a public record of the family's status. Tongkonan and the aluk todolo belief system they embody remain a living tradition in the Tana Toraja regency today.