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Wherever there was an expressive possibility in any kind of earlier art, Picasso found it and exploited it. Interestingly, his own invention and Braque's, Cubism, initially posed a problem in this respect. Faces were swallowed up in puzzle-like compositions, their features emerging only obliquely, incidentally, encoded. The face of the dealer Wilhelm Uhde in the Cubist portrait here is reduced to a few pinched lines, while the one of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler is nearly impossible to decipher. It took time before Picasso realized that Cubism could actually be deeply expressive: that the disconnection and rearrangement of parts of a person's appearance opened up vast new emotional possibilities for portraiture.
You see the results in Bather With Beach Ball, Picasso's sardonic remake of his young mistress, Walter, as a pneumatic plaything, a floating zeppelin with a blow-up tube for her head.
The portraits of Walter are often said to be Picasso's best. Some of them are remarkable: heraldic paeans to sex, composed of ripe, somersaulting shapes of unmodulated violets, reds, yellows and blues, bounded bp thick black contours. They are voyeuristic, erotic.
But the Walter portrait here, is not his finest. The more memorable works, it turns out, tend to be unexpected. For instance, there's one of Sara Murphy (or whoever) painted with sand. Braque painted with sand, so this portrait is partly a response to him, but what makes it special is the tender effect: a kind of low relief of soft forms fading into shadow that creates an evanescent image, a face seen in the half-light or as if through a scrim.
© Yves Claudé – 2009 / ycsocio@yahoo.ca
Montréal : charmes et maléfices d’une île laide …
NB: Cet album « Montréal : charmes et maléfices d’une île laide » est conçu comme un diaporama. Vous pouvez le lancer à partir de l’adresse suivante :
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Vos commentaires et suggestions sont appréciés, soit directement sur le site de flickr.com, soit via mon adresse de courriel (ycsocio@yahoo.ca).
Yves Claudé
ENGLISH / ESPAÑOL / DEUTSCH / ITALIANO / PORTUGUÊS / РУССКИЙ
NB: This album « Montréal : charms and bewitching of an ugly island » is conceived as a slide show. You can start it from the following address:
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It is preferable to choose "slow speed" in the menu of the slide show.
Your comments and suggestions are appreciated, either directly on the site flickr.com or via my email (ycsocio@yahoo.ca).
YC
Nota: Este álbum « Montréal : encantos y maleficios de una isla fea » es concebido como un diaporama. Usted puede lanzarlo a partir de la de la siguiente dirección:
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Es preferible seleccionar "velocidad lenta" en el menú del diaporama.
Sus comentarios y sugerencias son apreciados, ya sea directamente en el flickr.com sitio o por medio de mi correo electrónico (ycsocio@yahoo.ca).
YC
NB: Dieses Album « Montréal : Charme und Hexereien einer hässlichen Insel » ist wie ein diaporama konzipiert. Sie können es ab der folgenden Adresse werfen :
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Es ist besser "langsame Geschwindigkeit" im Menü des Diaporama auszuwählen.
Ihre Kommentare und Anregungen sind willkommen, entweder direkt auf der Website flickr.com oder über meine E-Mail-Adresse (ycsocio@yahoo.ca).
YC
NB: Questo album « Montréal : fascini e malefici di un'isola brutta » è concepito come un diaporama. Potete lanciarlo a partire dal seguente indirizzo :
www.flickr.com/photos/ycsocio/sets/72157621861102283/show/
È preferibile di selezionare "velocità lenta" nel menù del diaporama.
Vostri commenti e suggestioni sono apprezzati, o direttamente sul sito di flickr.com, o via il mio indirizzo di courriel (ycsocio@yahoo).
YC
NB: Este álbum « Montréal : encantos e maléfices de uma ilha feia » é concebido como um espetáculo de deslizamento. Você pode lançar isto do seguinte endereço:
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É preferível seleccionar " velocidade lente" na ementa do diaporama.
Seus comentários e sugestões são bem-vindas, quer directamente, no flickr.com local, quer através de meu endereço de e-mail (ycsocio@yahoo.ca).
YC
NB: Этот альбом "Отель: Обаяния и злые периоды уродливого острова" предназначена как слайд-шоу. Вы можете начать со следующего адреса:
www.flickr.com/photos/ycsocio/sets/72157621861102283/show/
Это должно лучше выбирать "медленно скорость" в меню показа слайда.
Ценим Ваши замечания и предложения, либо непосредственно на сайте flickr.com, либо через мой адрес электронной почты (ycsocio@yahoo.ca).
YC
"Yves Claudé" Montréal Québec punk punks skinhead skinheads Bloods Bloodz Crips Cripz mara maras "mara salvatrucha" "inégalités sociales" " social inequalities " "desigualdades sociales" "diseguaglianze sociali" "desigualdades sociais" "soziale Ungleichheiten" "sociale ongelijkheden" "социальные неравенства" "социальное неравенство" "marginalisation sociale" "social marginalization" "social marginalisation" "marginación social" "emarginazione sociale" "marginalização social" "Soziales Aussteigen" "soziale Marginalisierung" "sociale marginalisation" "социальное разграничивание" "cоциальная маргинализация" pauvreté poverty pobreza povertà Armut armoede exploitation explotación sfruttamento Betrieb gebruik victimisation victimization Viktimisierung vitimização révolte revolt uprising rebelión sommossa revolta Revolte opstand мятеж bосстание "mouvements sociaux" "social movements" "movimientos sociales" "movimenti sociali" "Movimentos sociais" "sozialen Bewegungen" "sociale bewegingen" "социальных движений" "социальные движения" "mouvement ouvrier" "labour movement" "movimiento obrero" "movimento operaio" "movimento operário" "Arbeiterbewegung" "arbeidersbeweging" "Рабочее движение" syndicat syndicats "labor union" "labor unions" "trade union" "trade unions" sindicato sindicatos sindacato sindacati Gewerkschaft Gewerkschaften vakbond vakbonden профсоюзный Профсоюз Профсоюзы Союз Союзы syndicalisme "trade unionism" sindicalismo Syndikalismus vakbeweging "профсоюзное движение" "mouvement des femmes" "movement of the women" "women's movement" "movimiento de las mujeres" "movimento delle donne" "movimento das mulheres" "Bewegung der Frauen" "beweging van de vrouwen" "движение женщин" "Женское движение" "mouvement féministe" "feminist movement" "movimiento feminista" "movimento femminista" "Frauenrechtsbewegung" "feministische Bewegung" "feministische beweging" féminisme feminism feminismo Feminismus феминизм poésie poetry poesía poesia Poesie dichtkunst поэзия "crime organisé" "organized crime" "crimen organizado" "crimine organizzato" "crime organizado" "organisiertes Verbrechen" "georganiseerde misdaad" "предумышленное преступление" "motards criminalisés" "biker gangs" "motociclistas criminalizados" "motociclisti criminalizzati" "kriminalisierte Motorradfahrer" "fietser troepen" "Криминализированные мотоциклисты" "gangs de rue" "street gangs" "pandillas callejeras" "bande di via" "bandos de rua" "Straßenbanden" "straat troepen" "уличные банды" mafia "culture urbaine" "urban culture" "cultura urbana" Stadtkultur stadscultuur "stedelijke cultuur" "городская культура" "culture populaire" "popular culture" "cultura popular" "cultura popolare" Volkskultur "народной культуры" "популярная культура" sous-culture subculture subcultura sottocultura subcolture Subkultur subcultuur субкультура sous-cultures subcultures subculturas Subkulturen subculturen субкультуры capitalisme capitalism capitalismo Kapitalismus kapitalisme капитализм "capitalisme sauvage" "savage capitalism" "capitalismo salvaje" "capitalismo selvaggio" "capitalismo selvagem" "wilder Kapitalismus" "wild kapitalisme" "Дикий капитализм" "capitalisme barbare" "barbarian capitalism" "capitalismo bárbaro" "capitalismo barbaro" "barbarischer Kapitalismus" "grof kapitalisme" "варварский капитализм" "дикий капитализм" Sociologie Sociology Sociología Sociologia Soziologie Социология Anthropologie Anthropology Antropología Antropologia Antropologie Антропология Histoire History Historia Storia História Geschichte Geschiedenis История
. . . 3. 3. 2007 - this is the second day of a funeral ceremony in Bori for a High Class Woman. She died on 18. 1. 2007 at the age of 85 years. The ceremony will last for one week.
If you wonder why the quality of the pictures is a little less: these are no photographs - it all are snapshots of my videos! So sorry for the less resolution, but I think, they are worth to be shown.
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The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 1,100,000, of whom 450,000 live in the regency of Tana Toraja ("Land of Toraja"). Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government has recognized this animist belief as Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the Ancestors").
The word toraja comes from the Bugis Buginese language term to riaja, meaning "people of the uplands". The Dutch colonial government named the people Toraja in 1909. Torajans are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, massive peaked-roof traditional houses known as tongkonan, and colorful wood carvings. Toraja funeral rites are important social events, usually attended by hundreds of people and lasting for several days.
Before the 20th century, Torajans lived in autonomous villages, where they practised animism and were relatively untouched by the outside world. In the early 1900s, Dutch missionaries first worked to convert Torajan highlanders to Christianity. When the Tana Toraja regency was further opened to the outside world in the 1970s, it became an icon of tourism in Indonesia: it was exploited by tourism developers and studied by anthropologists. By the 1990s, when tourism peaked, Toraja society had changed significantly, from an agrarian model - in which social life and customs were outgrowths of the Aluk To Dolo - to a largely Christian society. Today, tourism and remittances from migrant Torajans have made for major changes in the Toraja highland, giving the Toraja a celebrity status within Indonesia and enhancing Toraja ethnic group pride.
ETHNIC IDENTITY
The Torajan people had little notion of themselves as a distinct ethnic group before the 20th century. Before Dutch colonization and Christianization, Torajans, who lived in highland areas, identified with their villages and did not share a broad sense of identity. Although complexes of rituals created linkages between highland villages, there were variations in dialects, differences in social hierarchies, and an array of ritual practices in the Sulawesi highland region. "Toraja" (from the coastal languages' to, meaning people; and riaja, uplands) was first used as a lowlander expression for highlanders. As a result, "Toraja" initially had more currency with outsiders - such as the Bugis and Makassarese, who constitute a majority of the lowland of Sulawesi - than with insiders. The Dutch missionaries' presence in the highlands gave rise to the Toraja ethnic consciousness in the Sa'dan Toraja region, and this shared identity grew with the rise of tourism in the Tana Toraja Regency. Since then, South Sulawesi has four main ethnic groups - the Bugis (the majority, including shipbuilders and seafarers), the Makassarese (lowland traders and seafarers), the Mandarese (traders and fishermen), and the Toraja (highland rice cultivators).
HISTORY
From the 17th century, the Dutch established trade and political control on Sulawesi through the Dutch East Indies Company. Over two centuries, they ignored the mountainous area in the central Sulawesi, where Torajans lived, because access was difficult and it had little productive agricultural land. In the late 19th century, the Dutch became increasingly concerned about the spread of Islam in the south of Sulawesi, especially among the Makassarese and Bugis peoples. The Dutch saw the animist highlanders as potential Christians. In the 1920s, the Reformed Missionary Alliance of the Dutch Reformed Church began missionary work aided by the Dutch colonial government. In addition to introducing Christianity, the Dutch abolished slavery and imposed local taxes. A line was drawn around the Sa'dan area and called Tana Toraja ("the land of Toraja"). Tana Toraja was first a subdivision of the Luwu kingdom that had claimed the area. In 1946, the Dutch granted Tana Toraja a regentschap, and it was recognized in 1957 as one of the regencies of Indonesia.
Early Dutch missionaries faced strong opposition among Torajans, especially among the elite, because the abolition of their profitable slave trade had angered them. Some Torajans were forcibly relocated to the lowlands by the Dutch, where they could be more easily controlled. Taxes were kept high, undermining the wealth of the elites. Ultimately, the Dutch influence did not subdue Torajan culture, and only a few Torajans were converted. In 1950, only 10% of the population had converted to Christianity.
In the 1930s, Muslim lowlanders attacked the Torajans, resulting in widespread Christian conversion among those who sought to align themselves with the Dutch for political protection and to form a movement against the Bugis and Makassarese Muslims. Between 1951 and 1965 (following Indonesian independence), southern Sulawesi faced a turbulent period as the Darul Islam separatist movement fought for an Islamic state in Sulawesi. The 15 years of guerrilla warfare led to massive conversions to
CHRISTIANITY
Alignment with the Indonesian government, however, did not guarantee safety for the Torajans. In 1965, a presidential decree required every Indonesian citizen to belong to one of five officially recognized religions: Islam, Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism), Hinduism, or Buddhism. The Torajan religious belief (aluk) was not legally recognized, and the Torajans raised their voices against the law. To make aluk accord with the law, it had to be accepted as part of one of the official religions. In 1969, Aluk To Dolo ("the way of ancestors") was legalized as a sect of Agama Hindu Dharma, the official name of Hinduism in Indonesia.
SOCIETY
There are three main types of affiliation in Toraja society: family, class and religion.
FAMILY AFFILIATION
Family is the primary social and political grouping in Torajan society. Each village is one extended family, the seat of which is the tongkonan, a traditional Torajan house. Each tongkonan has a name, which becomes the name of the village. The familial dons maintain village unity. Marriage between distant cousins (fourth cousins and beyond) is a common practice that strengthens kinship. Toraja society prohibits marriage between close cousins (up to and including the third cousin) - except for nobles, to prevent the dispersal of property. Kinship is actively reciprocal, meaning that the extended family helps each other farm, share buffalo rituals, and pay off debts.
Each person belongs to both the mother's and the father's families, the only bilateral family line in Indonesia. Children, therefore, inherit household affiliation from both mother and father, including land and even family debts. Children's names are given on the basis of kinship, and are usually chosen after dead relatives. Names of aunts, uncles and cousins are commonly referred to in the names of mothers, fathers and siblings.
Before the start of the formal administration of Toraja villages by the Tana Toraja Regency, each Toraja village was autonomous. In a more complex situation, in which one Toraja family could not handle their problems alone, several villages formed a group; sometimes, villages would unite against other villages. Relationship between families was expressed through blood, marriage, and shared ancestral houses (tongkonan), practically signed by the exchange of water buffalo and pigs on ritual occasions. Such exchanges not only built political and cultural ties between families but defined each person's place in a social hierarchy: who poured palm wine, who wrapped a corpse and prepared offerings, where each person could or could not sit, what dishes should be used or avoided, and even what piece of meat constituted one's share.
CLASS AFFILIATION
In early Toraja society, family relationships were tied closely to social class. There were three strata: nobles, commoners, and slaves (slavery was abolished in 1909 by the Dutch East Indies government). Class was inherited through the mother. It was taboo, therefore, to marry "down" with a woman of lower class. On the other hand, marrying a woman of higher class could improve the status of the next generation. The nobility's condescending attitude toward the commoners is still maintained today for reasons of family prestige.
Nobles, who were believed to be direct descendants of the descended person from heaven, lived in tongkonans, while commoners lived in less lavish houses (bamboo shacks called banua). Slaves lived in small huts, which had to be built around their owner's tongkonan. Commoners might marry anyone, but nobles preferred to marry in-family to maintain their status. Sometimes nobles married Bugis or Makassarese nobles. Commoners and slaves were prohibited from having death feasts. Despite close kinship and status inheritance, there was some social mobility, as marriage or change in wealth could affect an individuals status. Wealth was counted by the ownership of water buffaloes.
Slaves in Toraja society were family property. Sometimes Torajans decided to become slaves when they incurred a debt, pledging to work as payment. Slaves could be taken during wars, and slave trading was common. Slaves could buy their freedom, but their children still inherited slave status. Slaves were prohibited from wearing bronze or gold, carving their houses, eating from the same dishes as their owners, or having sex with free women - a crime punishable by death.
RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION
Toraja's indigenous belief system is polytheistic animism, called aluk, or "the way" (sometimes translated as "the law"). In the Toraja myth, the ancestors of Torajan people came down from heaven using stairs, which were then used by the Torajans as a communication medium with Puang Matua, the Creator. The cosmos, according to aluk, is divided into the upper world (heaven), the world of man (earth), and the underworld. At first, heaven and earth were married, then there was a darkness, a separation, and finally the light. Animals live in the underworld, which is represented by rectangular space enclosed by pillars, the earth is for mankind, and the heaven world is located above, covered with a saddle-shaped roof. Other Toraja gods include Pong Banggai di Rante (god of Earth), Indo' Ongon-Ongon (a goddess who can cause earthquakes), Pong Lalondong (god of death), and Indo' Belo Tumbang (goddess of medicine); there are many more.
The earthly authority, whose words and actions should be cleaved to both in life (agriculture) and death (funerals), is called to minaa (an aluk priest). Aluk is not just a belief system; it is a combination of law, religion, and habit. Aluk governs social life, agricultural practices, and ancestral rituals. The details of aluk may vary from one village to another. One common law is the requirement that death and life rituals be separated. Torajans believe that performing death rituals might ruin their corpses if combined with life rituals. The two rituals are equally important. During the time of the Dutch missionaries, Christian Torajans were prohibited from attending or performing life rituals, but were allowed to perform death rituals. Consequently, Toraja's death rituals are still practised today, while life rituals have diminished.
CULTURE
TONGKONAN
Tongkonan are the traditional Torajan ancestral houses. They stand high on wooden piles, topped with a layered split-bamboo roof shaped in a sweeping curved arc, and they are incised with red, black, and yellow detailed wood carvings on the exterior walls. The word "tongkonan" comes from the Torajan tongkon ("to sit").
Tongkonan are the center of Torajan social life. The rituals associated with the tongkonan are important expressions of Torajan spiritual life, and therefore all family members are impelled to participate, because symbolically the tongkonan represents links to their ancestors and to living and future kin. According to Torajan myth, the first tongkonan was built in heaven on four poles, with a roof made of Indian cloth. When the first Torajan ancestor descended to earth, he imitated the house and held a large ceremony.
The construction of a tongkonan is laborious work and is usually done with the help of the extended family. There are three types of tongkonan. The tongkonan layuk is the house of the highest authority, used as the "center of government". The tongkonan pekamberan belongs to the family members who have some authority in local traditions. Ordinary family members reside in the tongkonan batu. The exclusivity to the nobility of the tongkonan is diminishing as many Torajan commoners find lucrative employment in other parts of Indonesia. As they send back money to their families, they enable the construction of larger tongkonan.
WOOD CARVINGS
To express social and religious concepts, Torajans carve wood, calling it Pa'ssura (or "the writing"). Wood carvings are therefore Toraja's cultural manifestation.
Each carving receives a special name, and common motifs are animals and plants that symbolize some virtue. For example, water plants and animals, such as crabs, tadpoles and water weeds, are commonly found to symbolize fertility. In some areas noble elders claim these symbols refer to strength of noble family, but not everyone agrees. The overall meaning of groups of carved motifs on houses remains debated and tourism has further complicated these debates because some feel a uniform explanation must be presented to tourists. The image to the left shows an example of Torajan wood carving, consisting of 15 square panels. The center bottom panel represents buffalo or wealth, a wish for many buffaloes for the family. The center panel represents a knot and a box, a hope that all of the family's offspring will be happy and live in harmony, like goods kept safe in a box. The top left and top right squares represent an aquatic animal, indicating the need for fast and hard work, just like moving on the surface of water. It also represents the need for a certain skill to produce good results.
Regularity and order are common features in Toraja wood carving (see table below), as well as abstracts and geometrical designs. Nature is frequently used as the basis of Toraja's ornaments, because nature is full of abstractions and geometries with regularities and ordering. Toraja's ornaments have been studied in ethnomathematics to reveal their mathematical structure, but Torajans base this art only on approximations. To create an ornament, bamboo sticks are used as a geometrical tool.
FUNERAL RITES
In Toraja society, the funeral ritual is the most elaborate and expensive event. The richer and more powerful the individual, the more expensive is the funeral. In the aluk religion, only nobles have the right to have an extensive death feast. The death feast of a nobleman is usually attended by thousands and lasts for several days. A ceremonial site, called rante, is usually prepared in a large, grassy field where shelters for audiences, rice barns, and other ceremonial funeral structures are specially made by the deceased family. Flute music, funeral chants, songs and poems, and crying and wailing are traditional Toraja expressions of grief with the exceptions of funerals for young children, and poor, low-status adults.
The ceremony is often held weeks, months, or years after the death so that the deceased's family can raise the significant funds needed to cover funeral expenses. Torajans traditionally believe that death is not a sudden, abrupt event, but a gradual process toward Puya (the land of souls, or afterlife). During the waiting period, the body of the deceased is wrapped in several layers of cloth and kept under the tongkonan. The soul of the deceased is thought to linger around the village until the funeral ceremony is completed, after which it begins its journey to Puya.
Another component of the ritual is the slaughter of water buffalo. The more powerful the person who died, the more buffalo are slaughtered at the death feast. Buffalo carcasses, including their heads, are usually lined up on a field waiting for their owner, who is in the "sleeping stage". Torajans believe that the deceased will need the buffalo to make the journey and that they will be quicker to arrive at Puya if they have many buffalo. Slaughtering tens of water buffalo and hundreds of pigs using a machete is the climax of the elaborate death feast, with dancing and music and young boys who catch spurting blood in long bamboo tubes. Some of the slaughtered animals are given by guests as "gifts", which are carefully noted because they will be considered debts of the deceased's family. However, a cockfight, known as bulangan londong, is an integral part of the ceremony. As with the sacrifice of the buffalo and the pigs, the cockfight is considered sacred because it involves the spilling of blood on the earth. In particular, the tradition requires the sacrifice of at least three chickens. However, it is common for at least 25 pairs of chickens to be set against each other in the context of the ceremony.
There are three methods of burial: the coffin may be laid in a cave or in a carved stone grave, or hung on a cliff. It contains any possessions that the deceased will need in the afterlife. The wealthy are often buried in a stone grave carved out of a rocky cliff. The grave is usually expensive and takes a few months to complete. In some areas, a stone cave may be found that is large enough to accommodate a whole family. A wood-carved effigy, called Tau tau, is usually placed in the cave looking out over the land. The coffin of a baby or child may be hung from ropes on a cliff face or from a tree. This hanging grave usually lasts for years, until the ropes rot and the coffin falls to the ground.
In the ritual called Ma'Nene, that takes place each year in August, the bodies of the deceased are exhumed to be washed, groomed and dressed in new clothes. The mummies are then walked around the village.
DANCE AND MUSIC
Torajans perform dances on several occasions, most often during their elaborate funeral ceremonies. They dance to express their grief, and to honour and even cheer the deceased person because he is going to have a long journey in the afterlife. First, a group of men form a circle and sing a monotonous chant throughout the night to honour the deceased (a ritual called Ma'badong). This is considered by many Torajans to be the most important component of the funeral ceremony. On the second funeral day, the Ma'randing warrior dance is performed to praise the courage of the deceased during life. Several men perform the dance with a sword, a large shield made from buffalo skin, a helmet with a buffalo horn, and other ornamentation. The Ma'randing dance precedes a procession in which the deceased is carried from a rice barn to the rante, the site of the funeral ceremony. During the funeral, elder women perform the Ma'katia dance while singing a poetic song and wearing a long feathered costume. The Ma'akatia dance is performed to remind the audience of the generosity and loyalty of the deceased person. After the bloody ceremony of buffalo and pig slaughter, a group of boys and girls clap their hands while performing a cheerful dance called Ma'dondan.
As in other agricultural societies, Torajans dance and sing during harvest time. The Ma'bugi dance celebrates the thanksgiving event, and the Ma'gandangi dance is performed while Torajans are pounding rice. There are several war dances, such as the Manimbong dance performed by men, followed by the Ma'dandan dance performed by women. The aluk religion governs when and how Torajans dance. A dance called Ma'bua can be performed only once every 12 years. Ma'bua is a major Toraja ceremony in which priests wear a buffalo head and dance around a sacred tree.
A traditional musical instrument of the Toraja is a bamboo flute called a Pa'suling (suling is an Indonesian word for flute). This six-holed flute (not unique to the Toraja) is played at many dances, such as the thanksgiving dance Ma'bondensan, where the flute accompanies a group of shirtless, dancing men with long fingernails. The Toraja have indigenous musical instruments, such as the Pa'pelle (made from palm leaves) and the Pa'karombi (the Torajan version of a jaw harp). The Pa'pelle is played during harvest time and at house inauguration ceremonies.
LANGUAGE
The ethnic Toraja language is dominant in Tana Toraja with the main language as the Sa'dan Toraja. Although the national Indonesian language is the official language and is spoken in the community, all elementary schools in Tana Toraja teach Toraja language.Language varieties of Toraja, including Kalumpang, Mamasa, Tae' , Talondo' , Toala' , and Toraja-Sa'dan, belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language from the Austronesian family. At the outset, the isolated geographical nature of Tana Toraja formed many dialects between the Toraja languages themselves. After the formal administration of Tana Toraja, some Toraja dialects have been influenced by other languages through the transmigration program, introduced since the colonialism period, and it has been a major factor in the linguistic variety of Toraja languages. A prominent attribute of Toraja language is the notion of grief. The importance of death ceremony in Toraja culture has characterized their languages to express intricate degrees of grief and mourning. The Toraja language contains many terms referring to sadness, longing, depression, and mental pain. Giving a clear expression of the psychological and physical effect of loss is a catharsis and sometimes lessens the pain of grief itself.
ECONOMY
Prior to Suharto's "New Order" administration, the Torajan economy was based on agriculture, with cultivated wet rice in terraced fields on mountain slopes, and supplemental cassava and maize crops. Much time and energy were devoted to raising water buffalo, pigs, and chickens, primarily for ceremonial sacrifices and consumption. Coffee was the first significant cash crop produced in Toraja, and was introduced in the mid 19th century, changing the local economy towards commodity production for external markets and gaining an excellent reputation for quality in the international market .
With the commencement of the New Order in 1965, Indonesia's economy developed and opened to foreign investment. In Toraja, a coffee plantation and factory was established by Key Coffee of Japan, and Torajan coffee regained a reputation for quality within the growing international specialty coffee sector Multinational oil and mining companies opened new operations in Indonesia during the 1970s and 1980s. Torajans, particularly younger ones, relocated to work for the foreign companies - to Kalimantan for timber and oil, to Papua for mining, to the cities of Sulawesi and Java, and many went to Malaysia. The out-migration of Torajans was steady until 1985. and has continued since, with remittances sent back by emigre Torajans performing an important role within the contemporary economy.
Tourism commenced in Toraja in the 1970s, and accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s. Between 1984 and 1997, a significant number of Torajans obtained their incomes from tourism, working in and owning hotels, as tour guides, drivers, or selling souvenirs. With the rise of political and economic instability in Indonesia in the late 1990s - including religious conflicts elsewhere on Sulawesi - tourism in Tana Toraja has declined dramatically. Toraja continues to be a well known origin for Indonesian coffee, grown by both smallholders and plantation estates, although migration, remittances and off-farm income is considered far more important to most households, even those in rural areas.
TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE
Before the 1970s, Toraja was almost unknown to Western tourism. In 1971, about 50 Europeans visited Tana Toraja. In 1972, at least 400 visitors attended the funeral ritual of Puang of Sangalla, the highest-ranking nobleman in Tana Toraja and the so-called "last pure-blooded Toraja noble." The event was documented by National Geographic and broadcast in several European countries. In 1976, about 12,000 tourists visited the regency and in 1981, Torajan sculpture was exhibited in major North American museums. "The land of the heavenly kings of Tana Toraja", as written in the exhibition brochure, embraced the outside world.
In 1984, the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism declared Tana Toraja Regency the prima donna of South Sulawesi. Tana Toraja was heralded as "the second stop after Bali". Tourism was increasing dramatically: by 1985, a total number of 150,000 foreigners had visited the Regency (in addition to 80,000 domestic tourists), and the annual number of foreign visitors was recorded at 40,000 in 1989. Souvenir stands appeared in Rantepao, the cultural center of Toraja, roads were sealed at the most-visited tourist sites, new hotels and tourist-oriented restaurants were opened, and an airstrip was opened in the Regency in 1981.
Tourism developers have marketed Tana Toraja as an exotic adventure - an area rich in culture and off the beaten track. Western tourists expected to see stone-age villages and pagan funerals. Toraja is for tourists who have gone as far as Bali and are willing to see more of the wild, "untouched" islands. However, they were more likely to see a Torajan wearing a hat and denim, living in a Christian society. Tourists felt that the tongkonan and other Torajan rituals had been preconceived to make profits, and complained that the destination was too commercialized. This has resulted in several clashes between Torajans and tourism developers, whom Torajans see as outsiders.
A clash between local Torajan leaders and the South Sulawesi provincial government (as a tourist developer) broke out in 1985. The government designated 18 Toraja villages and burial sites as traditional tourist attractions. Consequently, zoning restrictions were applied to these areas, such that Torajans themselves were barred from changing their tongkonans and burial sites. The plan was opposed by some Torajan leaders, as they felt that their rituals and traditions were being determined by outsiders. As a result, in 1987, the Torajan village of Kété Kesú and several other designated tourist attractions closed their doors to tourists. This closure lasted only a few days, as the villagers found it too difficult to survive without the income from selling souvenirs.
Tourism has also transformed Toraja society. Originally, there was a ritual which allowed commoners to marry nobles (puang) and thereby gain nobility for their children. However, the image of Torajan society created for the tourists, often by "lower-ranking" guides, has eroded its traditional strict hierarchy. High status is not as esteemed in Tana Toraja as it once was. Many low-ranking men can declare themselves and their children nobles by gaining enough wealth through work outside the region and then marrying a noble woman.
WIKIPEDIA
Exploitant : Cars Lacroix
Réseau : Navette Substitution SNCF Île-de-France
Ligne : Navette Transilien J
Lieu : Gare d'Argenteuil (Argenteuil, F-95)
Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/id/24914
. . . 2. 3. 2007 - this is the first day of a funeral ceremony in Bori for a High Class Woman. She died on 18. 1. 2007 at the age of 85 years. The ceremony will last for one week. Today we will see the showing of the water buffalos, pigs, cow, horse, deer and chicken. All these animals are offered to be the servants of the died woman in her new life after death in Puya. We will see buffalo fighting. Men bet for the winner of those fightings. Two buffalos fight each other - the one running away lost the fight!
If you wonder why the quality of the pictures is a little less: these are no photographs - it all are snapshots of my videos! So sorry for the less resolution, but I think, they are worth to be shown.
_____________________________________
The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 1,100,000, of whom 450,000 live in the regency of Tana Toraja ("Land of Toraja"). Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government has recognized this animist belief as Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the Ancestors").
The word toraja comes from the Bugis Buginese language term to riaja, meaning "people of the uplands". The Dutch colonial government named the people Toraja in 1909. Torajans are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, massive peaked-roof traditional houses known as tongkonan, and colorful wood carvings. Toraja funeral rites are important social events, usually attended by hundreds of people and lasting for several days.
Before the 20th century, Torajans lived in autonomous villages, where they practised animism and were relatively untouched by the outside world. In the early 1900s, Dutch missionaries first worked to convert Torajan highlanders to Christianity. When the Tana Toraja regency was further opened to the outside world in the 1970s, it became an icon of tourism in Indonesia: it was exploited by tourism developers and studied by anthropologists. By the 1990s, when tourism peaked, Toraja society had changed significantly, from an agrarian model - in which social life and customs were outgrowths of the Aluk To Dolo - to a largely Christian society. Today, tourism and remittances from migrant Torajans have made for major changes in the Toraja highland, giving the Toraja a celebrity status within Indonesia and enhancing Toraja ethnic group pride.
ETHNIC IDENTITY
The Torajan people had little notion of themselves as a distinct ethnic group before the 20th century. Before Dutch colonization and Christianization, Torajans, who lived in highland areas, identified with their villages and did not share a broad sense of identity. Although complexes of rituals created linkages between highland villages, there were variations in dialects, differences in social hierarchies, and an array of ritual practices in the Sulawesi highland region. "Toraja" (from the coastal languages' to, meaning people; and riaja, uplands) was first used as a lowlander expression for highlanders. As a result, "Toraja" initially had more currency with outsiders - such as the Bugis and Makassarese, who constitute a majority of the lowland of Sulawesi - than with insiders. The Dutch missionaries' presence in the highlands gave rise to the Toraja ethnic consciousness in the Sa'dan Toraja region, and this shared identity grew with the rise of tourism in the Tana Toraja Regency. Since then, South Sulawesi has four main ethnic groups - the Bugis (the majority, including shipbuilders and seafarers), the Makassarese (lowland traders and seafarers), the Mandarese (traders and fishermen), and the Toraja (highland rice cultivators).
HISTORY
From the 17th century, the Dutch established trade and political control on Sulawesi through the Dutch East Indies Company. Over two centuries, they ignored the mountainous area in the central Sulawesi, where Torajans lived, because access was difficult and it had little productive agricultural land. In the late 19th century, the Dutch became increasingly concerned about the spread of Islam in the south of Sulawesi, especially among the Makassarese and Bugis peoples. The Dutch saw the animist highlanders as potential Christians. In the 1920s, the Reformed Missionary Alliance of the Dutch Reformed Church began missionary work aided by the Dutch colonial government. In addition to introducing Christianity, the Dutch abolished slavery and imposed local taxes. A line was drawn around the Sa'dan area and called Tana Toraja ("the land of Toraja"). Tana Toraja was first a subdivision of the Luwu kingdom that had claimed the area. In 1946, the Dutch granted Tana Toraja a regentschap, and it was recognized in 1957 as one of the regencies of Indonesia.
Early Dutch missionaries faced strong opposition among Torajans, especially among the elite, because the abolition of their profitable slave trade had angered them. Some Torajans were forcibly relocated to the lowlands by the Dutch, where they could be more easily controlled. Taxes were kept high, undermining the wealth of the elites. Ultimately, the Dutch influence did not subdue Torajan culture, and only a few Torajans were converted. In 1950, only 10% of the population had converted to Christianity.
In the 1930s, Muslim lowlanders attacked the Torajans, resulting in widespread Christian conversion among those who sought to align themselves with the Dutch for political protection and to form a movement against the Bugis and Makassarese Muslims. Between 1951 and 1965 (following Indonesian independence), southern Sulawesi faced a turbulent period as the Darul Islam separatist movement fought for an Islamic state in Sulawesi. The 15 years of guerrilla warfare led to massive conversions to
CHRISTIANITY
Alignment with the Indonesian government, however, did not guarantee safety for the Torajans. In 1965, a presidential decree required every Indonesian citizen to belong to one of five officially recognized religions: Islam, Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism), Hinduism, or Buddhism. The Torajan religious belief (aluk) was not legally recognized, and the Torajans raised their voices against the law. To make aluk accord with the law, it had to be accepted as part of one of the official religions. In 1969, Aluk To Dolo ("the way of ancestors") was legalized as a sect of Agama Hindu Dharma, the official name of Hinduism in Indonesia.
SOCIETY
There are three main types of affiliation in Toraja society: family, class and religion.
FAMILY AFFILIATION
Family is the primary social and political grouping in Torajan society. Each village is one extended family, the seat of which is the tongkonan, a traditional Torajan house. Each tongkonan has a name, which becomes the name of the village. The familial dons maintain village unity. Marriage between distant cousins (fourth cousins and beyond) is a common practice that strengthens kinship. Toraja society prohibits marriage between close cousins (up to and including the third cousin) - except for nobles, to prevent the dispersal of property. Kinship is actively reciprocal, meaning that the extended family helps each other farm, share buffalo rituals, and pay off debts.
Each person belongs to both the mother's and the father's families, the only bilateral family line in Indonesia. Children, therefore, inherit household affiliation from both mother and father, including land and even family debts. Children's names are given on the basis of kinship, and are usually chosen after dead relatives. Names of aunts, uncles and cousins are commonly referred to in the names of mothers, fathers and siblings.
Before the start of the formal administration of Toraja villages by the Tana Toraja Regency, each Toraja village was autonomous. In a more complex situation, in which one Toraja family could not handle their problems alone, several villages formed a group; sometimes, villages would unite against other villages. Relationship between families was expressed through blood, marriage, and shared ancestral houses (tongkonan), practically signed by the exchange of water buffalo and pigs on ritual occasions. Such exchanges not only built political and cultural ties between families but defined each person's place in a social hierarchy: who poured palm wine, who wrapped a corpse and prepared offerings, where each person could or could not sit, what dishes should be used or avoided, and even what piece of meat constituted one's share.
CLASS AFFILIATION
In early Toraja society, family relationships were tied closely to social class. There were three strata: nobles, commoners, and slaves (slavery was abolished in 1909 by the Dutch East Indies government). Class was inherited through the mother. It was taboo, therefore, to marry "down" with a woman of lower class. On the other hand, marrying a woman of higher class could improve the status of the next generation. The nobility's condescending attitude toward the commoners is still maintained today for reasons of family prestige.
Nobles, who were believed to be direct descendants of the descended person from heaven, lived in tongkonans, while commoners lived in less lavish houses (bamboo shacks called banua). Slaves lived in small huts, which had to be built around their owner's tongkonan. Commoners might marry anyone, but nobles preferred to marry in-family to maintain their status. Sometimes nobles married Bugis or Makassarese nobles. Commoners and slaves were prohibited from having death feasts. Despite close kinship and status inheritance, there was some social mobility, as marriage or change in wealth could affect an individuals status. Wealth was counted by the ownership of water buffaloes.
Slaves in Toraja society were family property. Sometimes Torajans decided to become slaves when they incurred a debt, pledging to work as payment. Slaves could be taken during wars, and slave trading was common. Slaves could buy their freedom, but their children still inherited slave status. Slaves were prohibited from wearing bronze or gold, carving their houses, eating from the same dishes as their owners, or having sex with free women - a crime punishable by death.
RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION
Toraja's indigenous belief system is polytheistic animism, called aluk, or "the way" (sometimes translated as "the law"). In the Toraja myth, the ancestors of Torajan people came down from heaven using stairs, which were then used by the Torajans as a communication medium with Puang Matua, the Creator. The cosmos, according to aluk, is divided into the upper world (heaven), the world of man (earth), and the underworld. At first, heaven and earth were married, then there was a darkness, a separation, and finally the light. Animals live in the underworld, which is represented by rectangular space enclosed by pillars, the earth is for mankind, and the heaven world is located above, covered with a saddle-shaped roof. Other Toraja gods include Pong Banggai di Rante (god of Earth), Indo' Ongon-Ongon (a goddess who can cause earthquakes), Pong Lalondong (god of death), and Indo' Belo Tumbang (goddess of medicine); there are many more.
The earthly authority, whose words and actions should be cleaved to both in life (agriculture) and death (funerals), is called to minaa (an aluk priest). Aluk is not just a belief system; it is a combination of law, religion, and habit. Aluk governs social life, agricultural practices, and ancestral rituals. The details of aluk may vary from one village to another. One common law is the requirement that death and life rituals be separated. Torajans believe that performing death rituals might ruin their corpses if combined with life rituals. The two rituals are equally important. During the time of the Dutch missionaries, Christian Torajans were prohibited from attending or performing life rituals, but were allowed to perform death rituals. Consequently, Toraja's death rituals are still practised today, while life rituals have diminished.
CULTURE
TONGKONAN
Tongkonan are the traditional Torajan ancestral houses. They stand high on wooden piles, topped with a layered split-bamboo roof shaped in a sweeping curved arc, and they are incised with red, black, and yellow detailed wood carvings on the exterior walls. The word "tongkonan" comes from the Torajan tongkon ("to sit").
Tongkonan are the center of Torajan social life. The rituals associated with the tongkonan are important expressions of Torajan spiritual life, and therefore all family members are impelled to participate, because symbolically the tongkonan represents links to their ancestors and to living and future kin. According to Torajan myth, the first tongkonan was built in heaven on four poles, with a roof made of Indian cloth. When the first Torajan ancestor descended to earth, he imitated the house and held a large ceremony.
The construction of a tongkonan is laborious work and is usually done with the help of the extended family. There are three types of tongkonan. The tongkonan layuk is the house of the highest authority, used as the "center of government". The tongkonan pekamberan belongs to the family members who have some authority in local traditions. Ordinary family members reside in the tongkonan batu. The exclusivity to the nobility of the tongkonan is diminishing as many Torajan commoners find lucrative employment in other parts of Indonesia. As they send back money to their families, they enable the construction of larger tongkonan.
WOOD CARVINGS
To express social and religious concepts, Torajans carve wood, calling it Pa'ssura (or "the writing"). Wood carvings are therefore Toraja's cultural manifestation.
Each carving receives a special name, and common motifs are animals and plants that symbolize some virtue. For example, water plants and animals, such as crabs, tadpoles and water weeds, are commonly found to symbolize fertility. In some areas noble elders claim these symbols refer to strength of noble family, but not everyone agrees. The overall meaning of groups of carved motifs on houses remains debated and tourism has further complicated these debates because some feel a uniform explanation must be presented to tourists. The image to the left shows an example of Torajan wood carving, consisting of 15 square panels. The center bottom panel represents buffalo or wealth, a wish for many buffaloes for the family. The center panel represents a knot and a box, a hope that all of the family's offspring will be happy and live in harmony, like goods kept safe in a box. The top left and top right squares represent an aquatic animal, indicating the need for fast and hard work, just like moving on the surface of water. It also represents the need for a certain skill to produce good results.
Regularity and order are common features in Toraja wood carving (see table below), as well as abstracts and geometrical designs. Nature is frequently used as the basis of Toraja's ornaments, because nature is full of abstractions and geometries with regularities and ordering. Toraja's ornaments have been studied in ethnomathematics to reveal their mathematical structure, but Torajans base this art only on approximations. To create an ornament, bamboo sticks are used as a geometrical tool.
FUNERAL RITES
In Toraja society, the funeral ritual is the most elaborate and expensive event. The richer and more powerful the individual, the more expensive is the funeral. In the aluk religion, only nobles have the right to have an extensive death feast. The death feast of a nobleman is usually attended by thousands and lasts for several days. A ceremonial site, called rante, is usually prepared in a large, grassy field where shelters for audiences, rice barns, and other ceremonial funeral structures are specially made by the deceased family. Flute music, funeral chants, songs and poems, and crying and wailing are traditional Toraja expressions of grief with the exceptions of funerals for young children, and poor, low-status adults.
The ceremony is often held weeks, months, or years after the death so that the deceased's family can raise the significant funds needed to cover funeral expenses. Torajans traditionally believe that death is not a sudden, abrupt event, but a gradual process toward Puya (the land of souls, or afterlife). During the waiting period, the body of the deceased is wrapped in several layers of cloth and kept under the tongkonan. The soul of the deceased is thought to linger around the village until the funeral ceremony is completed, after which it begins its journey to Puya.
Another component of the ritual is the slaughter of water buffalo. The more powerful the person who died, the more buffalo are slaughtered at the death feast. Buffalo carcasses, including their heads, are usually lined up on a field waiting for their owner, who is in the "sleeping stage". Torajans believe that the deceased will need the buffalo to make the journey and that they will be quicker to arrive at Puya if they have many buffalo. Slaughtering tens of water buffalo and hundreds of pigs using a machete is the climax of the elaborate death feast, with dancing and music and young boys who catch spurting blood in long bamboo tubes. Some of the slaughtered animals are given by guests as "gifts", which are carefully noted because they will be considered debts of the deceased's family. However, a cockfight, known as bulangan londong, is an integral part of the ceremony. As with the sacrifice of the buffalo and the pigs, the cockfight is considered sacred because it involves the spilling of blood on the earth. In particular, the tradition requires the sacrifice of at least three chickens. However, it is common for at least 25 pairs of chickens to be set against each other in the context of the ceremony.
There are three methods of burial: the coffin may be laid in a cave or in a carved stone grave, or hung on a cliff. It contains any possessions that the deceased will need in the afterlife. The wealthy are often buried in a stone grave carved out of a rocky cliff. The grave is usually expensive and takes a few months to complete. In some areas, a stone cave may be found that is large enough to accommodate a whole family. A wood-carved effigy, called Tau tau, is usually placed in the cave looking out over the land. The coffin of a baby or child may be hung from ropes on a cliff face or from a tree. This hanging grave usually lasts for years, until the ropes rot and the coffin falls to the ground.
In the ritual called Ma'Nene, that takes place each year in August, the bodies of the deceased are exhumed to be washed, groomed and dressed in new clothes. The mummies are then walked around the village.
DANCE AND MUSIC
Torajans perform dances on several occasions, most often during their elaborate funeral ceremonies. They dance to express their grief, and to honour and even cheer the deceased person because he is going to have a long journey in the afterlife. First, a group of men form a circle and sing a monotonous chant throughout the night to honour the deceased (a ritual called Ma'badong). This is considered by many Torajans to be the most important component of the funeral ceremony. On the second funeral day, the Ma'randing warrior dance is performed to praise the courage of the deceased during life. Several men perform the dance with a sword, a large shield made from buffalo skin, a helmet with a buffalo horn, and other ornamentation. The Ma'randing dance precedes a procession in which the deceased is carried from a rice barn to the rante, the site of the funeral ceremony. During the funeral, elder women perform the Ma'katia dance while singing a poetic song and wearing a long feathered costume. The Ma'akatia dance is performed to remind the audience of the generosity and loyalty of the deceased person. After the bloody ceremony of buffalo and pig slaughter, a group of boys and girls clap their hands while performing a cheerful dance called Ma'dondan.
As in other agricultural societies, Torajans dance and sing during harvest time. The Ma'bugi dance celebrates the thanksgiving event, and the Ma'gandangi dance is performed while Torajans are pounding rice. There are several war dances, such as the Manimbong dance performed by men, followed by the Ma'dandan dance performed by women. The aluk religion governs when and how Torajans dance. A dance called Ma'bua can be performed only once every 12 years. Ma'bua is a major Toraja ceremony in which priests wear a buffalo head and dance around a sacred tree.
A traditional musical instrument of the Toraja is a bamboo flute called a Pa'suling (suling is an Indonesian word for flute). This six-holed flute (not unique to the Toraja) is played at many dances, such as the thanksgiving dance Ma'bondensan, where the flute accompanies a group of shirtless, dancing men with long fingernails. The Toraja have indigenous musical instruments, such as the Pa'pelle (made from palm leaves) and the Pa'karombi (the Torajan version of a jaw harp). The Pa'pelle is played during harvest time and at house inauguration ceremonies.
LANGUAGE
The ethnic Toraja language is dominant in Tana Toraja with the main language as the Sa'dan Toraja. Although the national Indonesian language is the official language and is spoken in the community, all elementary schools in Tana Toraja teach Toraja language.Language varieties of Toraja, including Kalumpang, Mamasa, Tae' , Talondo' , Toala' , and Toraja-Sa'dan, belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language from the Austronesian family. At the outset, the isolated geographical nature of Tana Toraja formed many dialects between the Toraja languages themselves. After the formal administration of Tana Toraja, some Toraja dialects have been influenced by other languages through the transmigration program, introduced since the colonialism period, and it has been a major factor in the linguistic variety of Toraja languages. A prominent attribute of Toraja language is the notion of grief. The importance of death ceremony in Toraja culture has characterized their languages to express intricate degrees of grief and mourning. The Toraja language contains many terms referring to sadness, longing, depression, and mental pain. Giving a clear expression of the psychological and physical effect of loss is a catharsis and sometimes lessens the pain of grief itself.
ECONOMY
Prior to Suharto's "New Order" administration, the Torajan economy was based on agriculture, with cultivated wet rice in terraced fields on mountain slopes, and supplemental cassava and maize crops. Much time and energy were devoted to raising water buffalo, pigs, and chickens, primarily for ceremonial sacrifices and consumption. Coffee was the first significant cash crop produced in Toraja, and was introduced in the mid 19th century, changing the local economy towards commodity production for external markets and gaining an excellent reputation for quality in the international market .
With the commencement of the New Order in 1965, Indonesia's economy developed and opened to foreign investment. In Toraja, a coffee plantation and factory was established by Key Coffee of Japan, and Torajan coffee regained a reputation for quality within the growing international specialty coffee sector Multinational oil and mining companies opened new operations in Indonesia during the 1970s and 1980s. Torajans, particularly younger ones, relocated to work for the foreign companies - to Kalimantan for timber and oil, to Papua for mining, to the cities of Sulawesi and Java, and many went to Malaysia. The out-migration of Torajans was steady until 1985. and has continued since, with remittances sent back by emigre Torajans performing an important role within the contemporary economy.
Tourism commenced in Toraja in the 1970s, and accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s. Between 1984 and 1997, a significant number of Torajans obtained their incomes from tourism, working in and owning hotels, as tour guides, drivers, or selling souvenirs. With the rise of political and economic instability in Indonesia in the late 1990s - including religious conflicts elsewhere on Sulawesi - tourism in Tana Toraja has declined dramatically. Toraja continues to be a well known origin for Indonesian coffee, grown by both smallholders and plantation estates, although migration, remittances and off-farm income is considered far more important to most households, even those in rural areas.
TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE
Before the 1970s, Toraja was almost unknown to Western tourism. In 1971, about 50 Europeans visited Tana Toraja. In 1972, at least 400 visitors attended the funeral ritual of Puang of Sangalla, the highest-ranking nobleman in Tana Toraja and the so-called "last pure-blooded Toraja noble." The event was documented by National Geographic and broadcast in several European countries. In 1976, about 12,000 tourists visited the regency and in 1981, Torajan sculpture was exhibited in major North American museums. "The land of the heavenly kings of Tana Toraja", as written in the exhibition brochure, embraced the outside world.
In 1984, the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism declared Tana Toraja Regency the prima donna of South Sulawesi. Tana Toraja was heralded as "the second stop after Bali". Tourism was increasing dramatically: by 1985, a total number of 150,000 foreigners had visited the Regency (in addition to 80,000 domestic tourists), and the annual number of foreign visitors was recorded at 40,000 in 1989. Souvenir stands appeared in Rantepao, the cultural center of Toraja, roads were sealed at the most-visited tourist sites, new hotels and tourist-oriented restaurants were opened, and an airstrip was opened in the Regency in 1981.
Tourism developers have marketed Tana Toraja as an exotic adventure - an area rich in culture and off the beaten track. Western tourists expected to see stone-age villages and pagan funerals. Toraja is for tourists who have gone as far as Bali and are willing to see more of the wild, "untouched" islands. However, they were more likely to see a Torajan wearing a hat and denim, living in a Christian society. Tourists felt that the tongkonan and other Torajan rituals had been preconceived to make profits, and complained that the destination was too commercialized. This has resulted in several clashes between Torajans and tourism developers, whom Torajans see as outsiders.
A clash between local Torajan leaders and the South Sulawesi provincial government (as a tourist developer) broke out in 1985. The government designated 18 Toraja villages and burial sites as traditional tourist attractions. Consequently, zoning restrictions were applied to these areas, such that Torajans themselves were barred from changing their tongkonans and burial sites. The plan was opposed by some Torajan leaders, as they felt that their rituals and traditions were being determined by outsiders. As a result, in 1987, the Torajan village of Kété Kesú and several other designated tourist attractions closed their doors to tourists. This closure lasted only a few days, as the villagers found it too difficult to survive without the income from selling souvenirs.
Tourism has also transformed Toraja society. Originally, there was a ritual which allowed commoners to marry nobles (puang) and thereby gain nobility for their children. However, the image of Torajan society created for the tourists, often by "lower-ranking" guides, has eroded its traditional strict hierarchy. High status is not as esteemed in Tana Toraja as it once was. Many low-ranking men can declare themselves and their children nobles by gaining enough wealth through work outside the region and then marrying a noble woman.
WIKIPEDIA
Exploitant : Transdev Montesson la Boucle
Réseau : Bus en Seine
Ligne : A
Lieu : Salle des Fêtes (Carrières-sur-Seine, F-78)
Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/id/29280
. . . 2. 3. 2007 - this is the first day of a funeral ceremony in Bori for a High Class Woman. She died on 18. 1. 2007 at the age of 85 years. The ceremony will last for one week. Today we will see the showing of the water buffalos, pigs, cow, horse, deer and chicken. All these animals are offered to be the servants of the died woman in her new life after death in Puya. We will see buffalo fighting. Men bet for the winner of those fightings. Two buffalos fight each other - the one running away lost the fight!
If you wonder why the quality of the pictures is a little less: these are no photographs - it all are snapshots of my videos! So sorry for the less resolution, but I think, they are worth to be shown.
_____________________________________
The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 1,100,000, of whom 450,000 live in the regency of Tana Toraja ("Land of Toraja"). Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government has recognized this animist belief as Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the Ancestors").
The word toraja comes from the Bugis Buginese language term to riaja, meaning "people of the uplands". The Dutch colonial government named the people Toraja in 1909. Torajans are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, massive peaked-roof traditional houses known as tongkonan, and colorful wood carvings. Toraja funeral rites are important social events, usually attended by hundreds of people and lasting for several days.
Before the 20th century, Torajans lived in autonomous villages, where they practised animism and were relatively untouched by the outside world. In the early 1900s, Dutch missionaries first worked to convert Torajan highlanders to Christianity. When the Tana Toraja regency was further opened to the outside world in the 1970s, it became an icon of tourism in Indonesia: it was exploited by tourism developers and studied by anthropologists. By the 1990s, when tourism peaked, Toraja society had changed significantly, from an agrarian model - in which social life and customs were outgrowths of the Aluk To Dolo - to a largely Christian society. Today, tourism and remittances from migrant Torajans have made for major changes in the Toraja highland, giving the Toraja a celebrity status within Indonesia and enhancing Toraja ethnic group pride.
ETHNIC IDENTITY
The Torajan people had little notion of themselves as a distinct ethnic group before the 20th century. Before Dutch colonization and Christianization, Torajans, who lived in highland areas, identified with their villages and did not share a broad sense of identity. Although complexes of rituals created linkages between highland villages, there were variations in dialects, differences in social hierarchies, and an array of ritual practices in the Sulawesi highland region. "Toraja" (from the coastal languages' to, meaning people; and riaja, uplands) was first used as a lowlander expression for highlanders. As a result, "Toraja" initially had more currency with outsiders - such as the Bugis and Makassarese, who constitute a majority of the lowland of Sulawesi - than with insiders. The Dutch missionaries' presence in the highlands gave rise to the Toraja ethnic consciousness in the Sa'dan Toraja region, and this shared identity grew with the rise of tourism in the Tana Toraja Regency. Since then, South Sulawesi has four main ethnic groups - the Bugis (the majority, including shipbuilders and seafarers), the Makassarese (lowland traders and seafarers), the Mandarese (traders and fishermen), and the Toraja (highland rice cultivators).
HISTORY
From the 17th century, the Dutch established trade and political control on Sulawesi through the Dutch East Indies Company. Over two centuries, they ignored the mountainous area in the central Sulawesi, where Torajans lived, because access was difficult and it had little productive agricultural land. In the late 19th century, the Dutch became increasingly concerned about the spread of Islam in the south of Sulawesi, especially among the Makassarese and Bugis peoples. The Dutch saw the animist highlanders as potential Christians. In the 1920s, the Reformed Missionary Alliance of the Dutch Reformed Church began missionary work aided by the Dutch colonial government. In addition to introducing Christianity, the Dutch abolished slavery and imposed local taxes. A line was drawn around the Sa'dan area and called Tana Toraja ("the land of Toraja"). Tana Toraja was first a subdivision of the Luwu kingdom that had claimed the area. In 1946, the Dutch granted Tana Toraja a regentschap, and it was recognized in 1957 as one of the regencies of Indonesia.
Early Dutch missionaries faced strong opposition among Torajans, especially among the elite, because the abolition of their profitable slave trade had angered them. Some Torajans were forcibly relocated to the lowlands by the Dutch, where they could be more easily controlled. Taxes were kept high, undermining the wealth of the elites. Ultimately, the Dutch influence did not subdue Torajan culture, and only a few Torajans were converted. In 1950, only 10% of the population had converted to Christianity.
In the 1930s, Muslim lowlanders attacked the Torajans, resulting in widespread Christian conversion among those who sought to align themselves with the Dutch for political protection and to form a movement against the Bugis and Makassarese Muslims. Between 1951 and 1965 (following Indonesian independence), southern Sulawesi faced a turbulent period as the Darul Islam separatist movement fought for an Islamic state in Sulawesi. The 15 years of guerrilla warfare led to massive conversions to
CHRISTIANITY
Alignment with the Indonesian government, however, did not guarantee safety for the Torajans. In 1965, a presidential decree required every Indonesian citizen to belong to one of five officially recognized religions: Islam, Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism), Hinduism, or Buddhism. The Torajan religious belief (aluk) was not legally recognized, and the Torajans raised their voices against the law. To make aluk accord with the law, it had to be accepted as part of one of the official religions. In 1969, Aluk To Dolo ("the way of ancestors") was legalized as a sect of Agama Hindu Dharma, the official name of Hinduism in Indonesia.
SOCIETY
There are three main types of affiliation in Toraja society: family, class and religion.
FAMILY AFFILIATION
Family is the primary social and political grouping in Torajan society. Each village is one extended family, the seat of which is the tongkonan, a traditional Torajan house. Each tongkonan has a name, which becomes the name of the village. The familial dons maintain village unity. Marriage between distant cousins (fourth cousins and beyond) is a common practice that strengthens kinship. Toraja society prohibits marriage between close cousins (up to and including the third cousin) - except for nobles, to prevent the dispersal of property. Kinship is actively reciprocal, meaning that the extended family helps each other farm, share buffalo rituals, and pay off debts.
Each person belongs to both the mother's and the father's families, the only bilateral family line in Indonesia. Children, therefore, inherit household affiliation from both mother and father, including land and even family debts. Children's names are given on the basis of kinship, and are usually chosen after dead relatives. Names of aunts, uncles and cousins are commonly referred to in the names of mothers, fathers and siblings.
Before the start of the formal administration of Toraja villages by the Tana Toraja Regency, each Toraja village was autonomous. In a more complex situation, in which one Toraja family could not handle their problems alone, several villages formed a group; sometimes, villages would unite against other villages. Relationship between families was expressed through blood, marriage, and shared ancestral houses (tongkonan), practically signed by the exchange of water buffalo and pigs on ritual occasions. Such exchanges not only built political and cultural ties between families but defined each person's place in a social hierarchy: who poured palm wine, who wrapped a corpse and prepared offerings, where each person could or could not sit, what dishes should be used or avoided, and even what piece of meat constituted one's share.
CLASS AFFILIATION
In early Toraja society, family relationships were tied closely to social class. There were three strata: nobles, commoners, and slaves (slavery was abolished in 1909 by the Dutch East Indies government). Class was inherited through the mother. It was taboo, therefore, to marry "down" with a woman of lower class. On the other hand, marrying a woman of higher class could improve the status of the next generation. The nobility's condescending attitude toward the commoners is still maintained today for reasons of family prestige.
Nobles, who were believed to be direct descendants of the descended person from heaven, lived in tongkonans, while commoners lived in less lavish houses (bamboo shacks called banua). Slaves lived in small huts, which had to be built around their owner's tongkonan. Commoners might marry anyone, but nobles preferred to marry in-family to maintain their status. Sometimes nobles married Bugis or Makassarese nobles. Commoners and slaves were prohibited from having death feasts. Despite close kinship and status inheritance, there was some social mobility, as marriage or change in wealth could affect an individuals status. Wealth was counted by the ownership of water buffaloes.
Slaves in Toraja society were family property. Sometimes Torajans decided to become slaves when they incurred a debt, pledging to work as payment. Slaves could be taken during wars, and slave trading was common. Slaves could buy their freedom, but their children still inherited slave status. Slaves were prohibited from wearing bronze or gold, carving their houses, eating from the same dishes as their owners, or having sex with free women - a crime punishable by death.
RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION
Toraja's indigenous belief system is polytheistic animism, called aluk, or "the way" (sometimes translated as "the law"). In the Toraja myth, the ancestors of Torajan people came down from heaven using stairs, which were then used by the Torajans as a communication medium with Puang Matua, the Creator. The cosmos, according to aluk, is divided into the upper world (heaven), the world of man (earth), and the underworld. At first, heaven and earth were married, then there was a darkness, a separation, and finally the light. Animals live in the underworld, which is represented by rectangular space enclosed by pillars, the earth is for mankind, and the heaven world is located above, covered with a saddle-shaped roof. Other Toraja gods include Pong Banggai di Rante (god of Earth), Indo' Ongon-Ongon (a goddess who can cause earthquakes), Pong Lalondong (god of death), and Indo' Belo Tumbang (goddess of medicine); there are many more.
The earthly authority, whose words and actions should be cleaved to both in life (agriculture) and death (funerals), is called to minaa (an aluk priest). Aluk is not just a belief system; it is a combination of law, religion, and habit. Aluk governs social life, agricultural practices, and ancestral rituals. The details of aluk may vary from one village to another. One common law is the requirement that death and life rituals be separated. Torajans believe that performing death rituals might ruin their corpses if combined with life rituals. The two rituals are equally important. During the time of the Dutch missionaries, Christian Torajans were prohibited from attending or performing life rituals, but were allowed to perform death rituals. Consequently, Toraja's death rituals are still practised today, while life rituals have diminished.
CULTURE
TONGKONAN
Tongkonan are the traditional Torajan ancestral houses. They stand high on wooden piles, topped with a layered split-bamboo roof shaped in a sweeping curved arc, and they are incised with red, black, and yellow detailed wood carvings on the exterior walls. The word "tongkonan" comes from the Torajan tongkon ("to sit").
Tongkonan are the center of Torajan social life. The rituals associated with the tongkonan are important expressions of Torajan spiritual life, and therefore all family members are impelled to participate, because symbolically the tongkonan represents links to their ancestors and to living and future kin. According to Torajan myth, the first tongkonan was built in heaven on four poles, with a roof made of Indian cloth. When the first Torajan ancestor descended to earth, he imitated the house and held a large ceremony.
The construction of a tongkonan is laborious work and is usually done with the help of the extended family. There are three types of tongkonan. The tongkonan layuk is the house of the highest authority, used as the "center of government". The tongkonan pekamberan belongs to the family members who have some authority in local traditions. Ordinary family members reside in the tongkonan batu. The exclusivity to the nobility of the tongkonan is diminishing as many Torajan commoners find lucrative employment in other parts of Indonesia. As they send back money to their families, they enable the construction of larger tongkonan.
WOOD CARVINGS
To express social and religious concepts, Torajans carve wood, calling it Pa'ssura (or "the writing"). Wood carvings are therefore Toraja's cultural manifestation.
Each carving receives a special name, and common motifs are animals and plants that symbolize some virtue. For example, water plants and animals, such as crabs, tadpoles and water weeds, are commonly found to symbolize fertility. In some areas noble elders claim these symbols refer to strength of noble family, but not everyone agrees. The overall meaning of groups of carved motifs on houses remains debated and tourism has further complicated these debates because some feel a uniform explanation must be presented to tourists. The image to the left shows an example of Torajan wood carving, consisting of 15 square panels. The center bottom panel represents buffalo or wealth, a wish for many buffaloes for the family. The center panel represents a knot and a box, a hope that all of the family's offspring will be happy and live in harmony, like goods kept safe in a box. The top left and top right squares represent an aquatic animal, indicating the need for fast and hard work, just like moving on the surface of water. It also represents the need for a certain skill to produce good results.
Regularity and order are common features in Toraja wood carving (see table below), as well as abstracts and geometrical designs. Nature is frequently used as the basis of Toraja's ornaments, because nature is full of abstractions and geometries with regularities and ordering. Toraja's ornaments have been studied in ethnomathematics to reveal their mathematical structure, but Torajans base this art only on approximations. To create an ornament, bamboo sticks are used as a geometrical tool.
FUNERAL RITES
In Toraja society, the funeral ritual is the most elaborate and expensive event. The richer and more powerful the individual, the more expensive is the funeral. In the aluk religion, only nobles have the right to have an extensive death feast. The death feast of a nobleman is usually attended by thousands and lasts for several days. A ceremonial site, called rante, is usually prepared in a large, grassy field where shelters for audiences, rice barns, and other ceremonial funeral structures are specially made by the deceased family. Flute music, funeral chants, songs and poems, and crying and wailing are traditional Toraja expressions of grief with the exceptions of funerals for young children, and poor, low-status adults.
The ceremony is often held weeks, months, or years after the death so that the deceased's family can raise the significant funds needed to cover funeral expenses. Torajans traditionally believe that death is not a sudden, abrupt event, but a gradual process toward Puya (the land of souls, or afterlife). During the waiting period, the body of the deceased is wrapped in several layers of cloth and kept under the tongkonan. The soul of the deceased is thought to linger around the village until the funeral ceremony is completed, after which it begins its journey to Puya.
Another component of the ritual is the slaughter of water buffalo. The more powerful the person who died, the more buffalo are slaughtered at the death feast. Buffalo carcasses, including their heads, are usually lined up on a field waiting for their owner, who is in the "sleeping stage". Torajans believe that the deceased will need the buffalo to make the journey and that they will be quicker to arrive at Puya if they have many buffalo. Slaughtering tens of water buffalo and hundreds of pigs using a machete is the climax of the elaborate death feast, with dancing and music and young boys who catch spurting blood in long bamboo tubes. Some of the slaughtered animals are given by guests as "gifts", which are carefully noted because they will be considered debts of the deceased's family. However, a cockfight, known as bulangan londong, is an integral part of the ceremony. As with the sacrifice of the buffalo and the pigs, the cockfight is considered sacred because it involves the spilling of blood on the earth. In particular, the tradition requires the sacrifice of at least three chickens. However, it is common for at least 25 pairs of chickens to be set against each other in the context of the ceremony.
There are three methods of burial: the coffin may be laid in a cave or in a carved stone grave, or hung on a cliff. It contains any possessions that the deceased will need in the afterlife. The wealthy are often buried in a stone grave carved out of a rocky cliff. The grave is usually expensive and takes a few months to complete. In some areas, a stone cave may be found that is large enough to accommodate a whole family. A wood-carved effigy, called Tau tau, is usually placed in the cave looking out over the land. The coffin of a baby or child may be hung from ropes on a cliff face or from a tree. This hanging grave usually lasts for years, until the ropes rot and the coffin falls to the ground.
In the ritual called Ma'Nene, that takes place each year in August, the bodies of the deceased are exhumed to be washed, groomed and dressed in new clothes. The mummies are then walked around the village.
DANCE AND MUSIC
Torajans perform dances on several occasions, most often during their elaborate funeral ceremonies. They dance to express their grief, and to honour and even cheer the deceased person because he is going to have a long journey in the afterlife. First, a group of men form a circle and sing a monotonous chant throughout the night to honour the deceased (a ritual called Ma'badong). This is considered by many Torajans to be the most important component of the funeral ceremony. On the second funeral day, the Ma'randing warrior dance is performed to praise the courage of the deceased during life. Several men perform the dance with a sword, a large shield made from buffalo skin, a helmet with a buffalo horn, and other ornamentation. The Ma'randing dance precedes a procession in which the deceased is carried from a rice barn to the rante, the site of the funeral ceremony. During the funeral, elder women perform the Ma'katia dance while singing a poetic song and wearing a long feathered costume. The Ma'akatia dance is performed to remind the audience of the generosity and loyalty of the deceased person. After the bloody ceremony of buffalo and pig slaughter, a group of boys and girls clap their hands while performing a cheerful dance called Ma'dondan.
As in other agricultural societies, Torajans dance and sing during harvest time. The Ma'bugi dance celebrates the thanksgiving event, and the Ma'gandangi dance is performed while Torajans are pounding rice. There are several war dances, such as the Manimbong dance performed by men, followed by the Ma'dandan dance performed by women. The aluk religion governs when and how Torajans dance. A dance called Ma'bua can be performed only once every 12 years. Ma'bua is a major Toraja ceremony in which priests wear a buffalo head and dance around a sacred tree.
A traditional musical instrument of the Toraja is a bamboo flute called a Pa'suling (suling is an Indonesian word for flute). This six-holed flute (not unique to the Toraja) is played at many dances, such as the thanksgiving dance Ma'bondensan, where the flute accompanies a group of shirtless, dancing men with long fingernails. The Toraja have indigenous musical instruments, such as the Pa'pelle (made from palm leaves) and the Pa'karombi (the Torajan version of a jaw harp). The Pa'pelle is played during harvest time and at house inauguration ceremonies.
LANGUAGE
The ethnic Toraja language is dominant in Tana Toraja with the main language as the Sa'dan Toraja. Although the national Indonesian language is the official language and is spoken in the community, all elementary schools in Tana Toraja teach Toraja language.Language varieties of Toraja, including Kalumpang, Mamasa, Tae' , Talondo' , Toala' , and Toraja-Sa'dan, belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language from the Austronesian family. At the outset, the isolated geographical nature of Tana Toraja formed many dialects between the Toraja languages themselves. After the formal administration of Tana Toraja, some Toraja dialects have been influenced by other languages through the transmigration program, introduced since the colonialism period, and it has been a major factor in the linguistic variety of Toraja languages. A prominent attribute of Toraja language is the notion of grief. The importance of death ceremony in Toraja culture has characterized their languages to express intricate degrees of grief and mourning. The Toraja language contains many terms referring to sadness, longing, depression, and mental pain. Giving a clear expression of the psychological and physical effect of loss is a catharsis and sometimes lessens the pain of grief itself.
ECONOMY
Prior to Suharto's "New Order" administration, the Torajan economy was based on agriculture, with cultivated wet rice in terraced fields on mountain slopes, and supplemental cassava and maize crops. Much time and energy were devoted to raising water buffalo, pigs, and chickens, primarily for ceremonial sacrifices and consumption. Coffee was the first significant cash crop produced in Toraja, and was introduced in the mid 19th century, changing the local economy towards commodity production for external markets and gaining an excellent reputation for quality in the international market .
With the commencement of the New Order in 1965, Indonesia's economy developed and opened to foreign investment. In Toraja, a coffee plantation and factory was established by Key Coffee of Japan, and Torajan coffee regained a reputation for quality within the growing international specialty coffee sector Multinational oil and mining companies opened new operations in Indonesia during the 1970s and 1980s. Torajans, particularly younger ones, relocated to work for the foreign companies - to Kalimantan for timber and oil, to Papua for mining, to the cities of Sulawesi and Java, and many went to Malaysia. The out-migration of Torajans was steady until 1985. and has continued since, with remittances sent back by emigre Torajans performing an important role within the contemporary economy.
Tourism commenced in Toraja in the 1970s, and accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s. Between 1984 and 1997, a significant number of Torajans obtained their incomes from tourism, working in and owning hotels, as tour guides, drivers, or selling souvenirs. With the rise of political and economic instability in Indonesia in the late 1990s - including religious conflicts elsewhere on Sulawesi - tourism in Tana Toraja has declined dramatically. Toraja continues to be a well known origin for Indonesian coffee, grown by both smallholders and plantation estates, although migration, remittances and off-farm income is considered far more important to most households, even those in rural areas.
TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE
Before the 1970s, Toraja was almost unknown to Western tourism. In 1971, about 50 Europeans visited Tana Toraja. In 1972, at least 400 visitors attended the funeral ritual of Puang of Sangalla, the highest-ranking nobleman in Tana Toraja and the so-called "last pure-blooded Toraja noble." The event was documented by National Geographic and broadcast in several European countries. In 1976, about 12,000 tourists visited the regency and in 1981, Torajan sculpture was exhibited in major North American museums. "The land of the heavenly kings of Tana Toraja", as written in the exhibition brochure, embraced the outside world.
In 1984, the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism declared Tana Toraja Regency the prima donna of South Sulawesi. Tana Toraja was heralded as "the second stop after Bali". Tourism was increasing dramatically: by 1985, a total number of 150,000 foreigners had visited the Regency (in addition to 80,000 domestic tourists), and the annual number of foreign visitors was recorded at 40,000 in 1989. Souvenir stands appeared in Rantepao, the cultural center of Toraja, roads were sealed at the most-visited tourist sites, new hotels and tourist-oriented restaurants were opened, and an airstrip was opened in the Regency in 1981.
Tourism developers have marketed Tana Toraja as an exotic adventure - an area rich in culture and off the beaten track. Western tourists expected to see stone-age villages and pagan funerals. Toraja is for tourists who have gone as far as Bali and are willing to see more of the wild, "untouched" islands. However, they were more likely to see a Torajan wearing a hat and denim, living in a Christian society. Tourists felt that the tongkonan and other Torajan rituals had been preconceived to make profits, and complained that the destination was too commercialized. This has resulted in several clashes between Torajans and tourism developers, whom Torajans see as outsiders.
A clash between local Torajan leaders and the South Sulawesi provincial government (as a tourist developer) broke out in 1985. The government designated 18 Toraja villages and burial sites as traditional tourist attractions. Consequently, zoning restrictions were applied to these areas, such that Torajans themselves were barred from changing their tongkonans and burial sites. The plan was opposed by some Torajan leaders, as they felt that their rituals and traditions were being determined by outsiders. As a result, in 1987, the Torajan village of Kété Kesú and several other designated tourist attractions closed their doors to tourists. This closure lasted only a few days, as the villagers found it too difficult to survive without the income from selling souvenirs.
Tourism has also transformed Toraja society. Originally, there was a ritual which allowed commoners to marry nobles (puang) and thereby gain nobility for their children. However, the image of Torajan society created for the tourists, often by "lower-ranking" guides, has eroded its traditional strict hierarchy. High status is not as esteemed in Tana Toraja as it once was. Many low-ranking men can declare themselves and their children nobles by gaining enough wealth through work outside the region and then marrying a noble woman.
WIKIPEDIA
Exploitant : Transdev Conflans
Réseau : Navette Substitution SNCF Île-de-France
Ligne : Navette Transilien J
Lieu : Gare d'Argenteuil (Argenteuil, F-95)
Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/id/29096
Brasília, The Exploited em Brasília, 06/11/09.
[Click em "ALL SIZES" acima da foto para vê-la em seu tamanho original]
A Rohingya refugee woman in Bangladesh who is now working to help protect other vulnerable Rohingya and Bangladeshi people from abuse and exploitation by volunteering with the NGO Solidarités International, helping connect people who need additional support to access services such as legal representation, protection or counselling.
Solidarités International is one of a wide range of NGOs being supported by UK aid as part of the UK's response to the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh.
Picture: Russell Watkins/Department for International Development
. . . 3. 3. 2007 - this is the second day of a funeral ceremony in Bori for a High Class Woman. She died on 18. 1. 2007 at the age of 85 years. The ceremony will last for one week.
If you wonder why the quality of the pictures is a little less: these are no photographs - it all are snapshots of my videos! So sorry for the less resolution, but I think, they are worth to be shown.
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The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 1,100,000, of whom 450,000 live in the regency of Tana Toraja ("Land of Toraja"). Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government has recognized this animist belief as Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the Ancestors").
The word toraja comes from the Bugis Buginese language term to riaja, meaning "people of the uplands". The Dutch colonial government named the people Toraja in 1909. Torajans are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, massive peaked-roof traditional houses known as tongkonan, and colorful wood carvings. Toraja funeral rites are important social events, usually attended by hundreds of people and lasting for several days.
Before the 20th century, Torajans lived in autonomous villages, where they practised animism and were relatively untouched by the outside world. In the early 1900s, Dutch missionaries first worked to convert Torajan highlanders to Christianity. When the Tana Toraja regency was further opened to the outside world in the 1970s, it became an icon of tourism in Indonesia: it was exploited by tourism developers and studied by anthropologists. By the 1990s, when tourism peaked, Toraja society had changed significantly, from an agrarian model - in which social life and customs were outgrowths of the Aluk To Dolo - to a largely Christian society. Today, tourism and remittances from migrant Torajans have made for major changes in the Toraja highland, giving the Toraja a celebrity status within Indonesia and enhancing Toraja ethnic group pride.
ETHNIC IDENTITY
The Torajan people had little notion of themselves as a distinct ethnic group before the 20th century. Before Dutch colonization and Christianization, Torajans, who lived in highland areas, identified with their villages and did not share a broad sense of identity. Although complexes of rituals created linkages between highland villages, there were variations in dialects, differences in social hierarchies, and an array of ritual practices in the Sulawesi highland region. "Toraja" (from the coastal languages' to, meaning people; and riaja, uplands) was first used as a lowlander expression for highlanders. As a result, "Toraja" initially had more currency with outsiders - such as the Bugis and Makassarese, who constitute a majority of the lowland of Sulawesi - than with insiders. The Dutch missionaries' presence in the highlands gave rise to the Toraja ethnic consciousness in the Sa'dan Toraja region, and this shared identity grew with the rise of tourism in the Tana Toraja Regency. Since then, South Sulawesi has four main ethnic groups - the Bugis (the majority, including shipbuilders and seafarers), the Makassarese (lowland traders and seafarers), the Mandarese (traders and fishermen), and the Toraja (highland rice cultivators).
HISTORY
From the 17th century, the Dutch established trade and political control on Sulawesi through the Dutch East Indies Company. Over two centuries, they ignored the mountainous area in the central Sulawesi, where Torajans lived, because access was difficult and it had little productive agricultural land. In the late 19th century, the Dutch became increasingly concerned about the spread of Islam in the south of Sulawesi, especially among the Makassarese and Bugis peoples. The Dutch saw the animist highlanders as potential Christians. In the 1920s, the Reformed Missionary Alliance of the Dutch Reformed Church began missionary work aided by the Dutch colonial government. In addition to introducing Christianity, the Dutch abolished slavery and imposed local taxes. A line was drawn around the Sa'dan area and called Tana Toraja ("the land of Toraja"). Tana Toraja was first a subdivision of the Luwu kingdom that had claimed the area. In 1946, the Dutch granted Tana Toraja a regentschap, and it was recognized in 1957 as one of the regencies of Indonesia.
Early Dutch missionaries faced strong opposition among Torajans, especially among the elite, because the abolition of their profitable slave trade had angered them. Some Torajans were forcibly relocated to the lowlands by the Dutch, where they could be more easily controlled. Taxes were kept high, undermining the wealth of the elites. Ultimately, the Dutch influence did not subdue Torajan culture, and only a few Torajans were converted. In 1950, only 10% of the population had converted to Christianity.
In the 1930s, Muslim lowlanders attacked the Torajans, resulting in widespread Christian conversion among those who sought to align themselves with the Dutch for political protection and to form a movement against the Bugis and Makassarese Muslims. Between 1951 and 1965 (following Indonesian independence), southern Sulawesi faced a turbulent period as the Darul Islam separatist movement fought for an Islamic state in Sulawesi. The 15 years of guerrilla warfare led to massive conversions to
CHRISTIANITY
Alignment with the Indonesian government, however, did not guarantee safety for the Torajans. In 1965, a presidential decree required every Indonesian citizen to belong to one of five officially recognized religions: Islam, Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism), Hinduism, or Buddhism. The Torajan religious belief (aluk) was not legally recognized, and the Torajans raised their voices against the law. To make aluk accord with the law, it had to be accepted as part of one of the official religions. In 1969, Aluk To Dolo ("the way of ancestors") was legalized as a sect of Agama Hindu Dharma, the official name of Hinduism in Indonesia.
SOCIETY
There are three main types of affiliation in Toraja society: family, class and religion.
FAMILY AFFILIATION
Family is the primary social and political grouping in Torajan society. Each village is one extended family, the seat of which is the tongkonan, a traditional Torajan house. Each tongkonan has a name, which becomes the name of the village. The familial dons maintain village unity. Marriage between distant cousins (fourth cousins and beyond) is a common practice that strengthens kinship. Toraja society prohibits marriage between close cousins (up to and including the third cousin) - except for nobles, to prevent the dispersal of property. Kinship is actively reciprocal, meaning that the extended family helps each other farm, share buffalo rituals, and pay off debts.
Each person belongs to both the mother's and the father's families, the only bilateral family line in Indonesia. Children, therefore, inherit household affiliation from both mother and father, including land and even family debts. Children's names are given on the basis of kinship, and are usually chosen after dead relatives. Names of aunts, uncles and cousins are commonly referred to in the names of mothers, fathers and siblings.
Before the start of the formal administration of Toraja villages by the Tana Toraja Regency, each Toraja village was autonomous. In a more complex situation, in which one Toraja family could not handle their problems alone, several villages formed a group; sometimes, villages would unite against other villages. Relationship between families was expressed through blood, marriage, and shared ancestral houses (tongkonan), practically signed by the exchange of water buffalo and pigs on ritual occasions. Such exchanges not only built political and cultural ties between families but defined each person's place in a social hierarchy: who poured palm wine, who wrapped a corpse and prepared offerings, where each person could or could not sit, what dishes should be used or avoided, and even what piece of meat constituted one's share.
CLASS AFFILIATION
In early Toraja society, family relationships were tied closely to social class. There were three strata: nobles, commoners, and slaves (slavery was abolished in 1909 by the Dutch East Indies government). Class was inherited through the mother. It was taboo, therefore, to marry "down" with a woman of lower class. On the other hand, marrying a woman of higher class could improve the status of the next generation. The nobility's condescending attitude toward the commoners is still maintained today for reasons of family prestige.
Nobles, who were believed to be direct descendants of the descended person from heaven, lived in tongkonans, while commoners lived in less lavish houses (bamboo shacks called banua). Slaves lived in small huts, which had to be built around their owner's tongkonan. Commoners might marry anyone, but nobles preferred to marry in-family to maintain their status. Sometimes nobles married Bugis or Makassarese nobles. Commoners and slaves were prohibited from having death feasts. Despite close kinship and status inheritance, there was some social mobility, as marriage or change in wealth could affect an individuals status. Wealth was counted by the ownership of water buffaloes.
Slaves in Toraja society were family property. Sometimes Torajans decided to become slaves when they incurred a debt, pledging to work as payment. Slaves could be taken during wars, and slave trading was common. Slaves could buy their freedom, but their children still inherited slave status. Slaves were prohibited from wearing bronze or gold, carving their houses, eating from the same dishes as their owners, or having sex with free women - a crime punishable by death.
RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION
Toraja's indigenous belief system is polytheistic animism, called aluk, or "the way" (sometimes translated as "the law"). In the Toraja myth, the ancestors of Torajan people came down from heaven using stairs, which were then used by the Torajans as a communication medium with Puang Matua, the Creator. The cosmos, according to aluk, is divided into the upper world (heaven), the world of man (earth), and the underworld. At first, heaven and earth were married, then there was a darkness, a separation, and finally the light. Animals live in the underworld, which is represented by rectangular space enclosed by pillars, the earth is for mankind, and the heaven world is located above, covered with a saddle-shaped roof. Other Toraja gods include Pong Banggai di Rante (god of Earth), Indo' Ongon-Ongon (a goddess who can cause earthquakes), Pong Lalondong (god of death), and Indo' Belo Tumbang (goddess of medicine); there are many more.
The earthly authority, whose words and actions should be cleaved to both in life (agriculture) and death (funerals), is called to minaa (an aluk priest). Aluk is not just a belief system; it is a combination of law, religion, and habit. Aluk governs social life, agricultural practices, and ancestral rituals. The details of aluk may vary from one village to another. One common law is the requirement that death and life rituals be separated. Torajans believe that performing death rituals might ruin their corpses if combined with life rituals. The two rituals are equally important. During the time of the Dutch missionaries, Christian Torajans were prohibited from attending or performing life rituals, but were allowed to perform death rituals. Consequently, Toraja's death rituals are still practised today, while life rituals have diminished.
CULTURE
TONGKONAN
Tongkonan are the traditional Torajan ancestral houses. They stand high on wooden piles, topped with a layered split-bamboo roof shaped in a sweeping curved arc, and they are incised with red, black, and yellow detailed wood carvings on the exterior walls. The word "tongkonan" comes from the Torajan tongkon ("to sit").
Tongkonan are the center of Torajan social life. The rituals associated with the tongkonan are important expressions of Torajan spiritual life, and therefore all family members are impelled to participate, because symbolically the tongkonan represents links to their ancestors and to living and future kin. According to Torajan myth, the first tongkonan was built in heaven on four poles, with a roof made of Indian cloth. When the first Torajan ancestor descended to earth, he imitated the house and held a large ceremony.
The construction of a tongkonan is laborious work and is usually done with the help of the extended family. There are three types of tongkonan. The tongkonan layuk is the house of the highest authority, used as the "center of government". The tongkonan pekamberan belongs to the family members who have some authority in local traditions. Ordinary family members reside in the tongkonan batu. The exclusivity to the nobility of the tongkonan is diminishing as many Torajan commoners find lucrative employment in other parts of Indonesia. As they send back money to their families, they enable the construction of larger tongkonan.
WOOD CARVINGS
To express social and religious concepts, Torajans carve wood, calling it Pa'ssura (or "the writing"). Wood carvings are therefore Toraja's cultural manifestation.
Each carving receives a special name, and common motifs are animals and plants that symbolize some virtue. For example, water plants and animals, such as crabs, tadpoles and water weeds, are commonly found to symbolize fertility. In some areas noble elders claim these symbols refer to strength of noble family, but not everyone agrees. The overall meaning of groups of carved motifs on houses remains debated and tourism has further complicated these debates because some feel a uniform explanation must be presented to tourists. The image to the left shows an example of Torajan wood carving, consisting of 15 square panels. The center bottom panel represents buffalo or wealth, a wish for many buffaloes for the family. The center panel represents a knot and a box, a hope that all of the family's offspring will be happy and live in harmony, like goods kept safe in a box. The top left and top right squares represent an aquatic animal, indicating the need for fast and hard work, just like moving on the surface of water. It also represents the need for a certain skill to produce good results.
Regularity and order are common features in Toraja wood carving (see table below), as well as abstracts and geometrical designs. Nature is frequently used as the basis of Toraja's ornaments, because nature is full of abstractions and geometries with regularities and ordering. Toraja's ornaments have been studied in ethnomathematics to reveal their mathematical structure, but Torajans base this art only on approximations. To create an ornament, bamboo sticks are used as a geometrical tool.
FUNERAL RITES
In Toraja society, the funeral ritual is the most elaborate and expensive event. The richer and more powerful the individual, the more expensive is the funeral. In the aluk religion, only nobles have the right to have an extensive death feast. The death feast of a nobleman is usually attended by thousands and lasts for several days. A ceremonial site, called rante, is usually prepared in a large, grassy field where shelters for audiences, rice barns, and other ceremonial funeral structures are specially made by the deceased family. Flute music, funeral chants, songs and poems, and crying and wailing are traditional Toraja expressions of grief with the exceptions of funerals for young children, and poor, low-status adults.
The ceremony is often held weeks, months, or years after the death so that the deceased's family can raise the significant funds needed to cover funeral expenses. Torajans traditionally believe that death is not a sudden, abrupt event, but a gradual process toward Puya (the land of souls, or afterlife). During the waiting period, the body of the deceased is wrapped in several layers of cloth and kept under the tongkonan. The soul of the deceased is thought to linger around the village until the funeral ceremony is completed, after which it begins its journey to Puya.
Another component of the ritual is the slaughter of water buffalo. The more powerful the person who died, the more buffalo are slaughtered at the death feast. Buffalo carcasses, including their heads, are usually lined up on a field waiting for their owner, who is in the "sleeping stage". Torajans believe that the deceased will need the buffalo to make the journey and that they will be quicker to arrive at Puya if they have many buffalo. Slaughtering tens of water buffalo and hundreds of pigs using a machete is the climax of the elaborate death feast, with dancing and music and young boys who catch spurting blood in long bamboo tubes. Some of the slaughtered animals are given by guests as "gifts", which are carefully noted because they will be considered debts of the deceased's family. However, a cockfight, known as bulangan londong, is an integral part of the ceremony. As with the sacrifice of the buffalo and the pigs, the cockfight is considered sacred because it involves the spilling of blood on the earth. In particular, the tradition requires the sacrifice of at least three chickens. However, it is common for at least 25 pairs of chickens to be set against each other in the context of the ceremony.
There are three methods of burial: the coffin may be laid in a cave or in a carved stone grave, or hung on a cliff. It contains any possessions that the deceased will need in the afterlife. The wealthy are often buried in a stone grave carved out of a rocky cliff. The grave is usually expensive and takes a few months to complete. In some areas, a stone cave may be found that is large enough to accommodate a whole family. A wood-carved effigy, called Tau tau, is usually placed in the cave looking out over the land. The coffin of a baby or child may be hung from ropes on a cliff face or from a tree. This hanging grave usually lasts for years, until the ropes rot and the coffin falls to the ground.
In the ritual called Ma'Nene, that takes place each year in August, the bodies of the deceased are exhumed to be washed, groomed and dressed in new clothes. The mummies are then walked around the village.
DANCE AND MUSIC
Torajans perform dances on several occasions, most often during their elaborate funeral ceremonies. They dance to express their grief, and to honour and even cheer the deceased person because he is going to have a long journey in the afterlife. First, a group of men form a circle and sing a monotonous chant throughout the night to honour the deceased (a ritual called Ma'badong). This is considered by many Torajans to be the most important component of the funeral ceremony. On the second funeral day, the Ma'randing warrior dance is performed to praise the courage of the deceased during life. Several men perform the dance with a sword, a large shield made from buffalo skin, a helmet with a buffalo horn, and other ornamentation. The Ma'randing dance precedes a procession in which the deceased is carried from a rice barn to the rante, the site of the funeral ceremony. During the funeral, elder women perform the Ma'katia dance while singing a poetic song and wearing a long feathered costume. The Ma'akatia dance is performed to remind the audience of the generosity and loyalty of the deceased person. After the bloody ceremony of buffalo and pig slaughter, a group of boys and girls clap their hands while performing a cheerful dance called Ma'dondan.
As in other agricultural societies, Torajans dance and sing during harvest time. The Ma'bugi dance celebrates the thanksgiving event, and the Ma'gandangi dance is performed while Torajans are pounding rice. There are several war dances, such as the Manimbong dance performed by men, followed by the Ma'dandan dance performed by women. The aluk religion governs when and how Torajans dance. A dance called Ma'bua can be performed only once every 12 years. Ma'bua is a major Toraja ceremony in which priests wear a buffalo head and dance around a sacred tree.
A traditional musical instrument of the Toraja is a bamboo flute called a Pa'suling (suling is an Indonesian word for flute). This six-holed flute (not unique to the Toraja) is played at many dances, such as the thanksgiving dance Ma'bondensan, where the flute accompanies a group of shirtless, dancing men with long fingernails. The Toraja have indigenous musical instruments, such as the Pa'pelle (made from palm leaves) and the Pa'karombi (the Torajan version of a jaw harp). The Pa'pelle is played during harvest time and at house inauguration ceremonies.
LANGUAGE
The ethnic Toraja language is dominant in Tana Toraja with the main language as the Sa'dan Toraja. Although the national Indonesian language is the official language and is spoken in the community, all elementary schools in Tana Toraja teach Toraja language.Language varieties of Toraja, including Kalumpang, Mamasa, Tae' , Talondo' , Toala' , and Toraja-Sa'dan, belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language from the Austronesian family. At the outset, the isolated geographical nature of Tana Toraja formed many dialects between the Toraja languages themselves. After the formal administration of Tana Toraja, some Toraja dialects have been influenced by other languages through the transmigration program, introduced since the colonialism period, and it has been a major factor in the linguistic variety of Toraja languages. A prominent attribute of Toraja language is the notion of grief. The importance of death ceremony in Toraja culture has characterized their languages to express intricate degrees of grief and mourning. The Toraja language contains many terms referring to sadness, longing, depression, and mental pain. Giving a clear expression of the psychological and physical effect of loss is a catharsis and sometimes lessens the pain of grief itself.
ECONOMY
Prior to Suharto's "New Order" administration, the Torajan economy was based on agriculture, with cultivated wet rice in terraced fields on mountain slopes, and supplemental cassava and maize crops. Much time and energy were devoted to raising water buffalo, pigs, and chickens, primarily for ceremonial sacrifices and consumption. Coffee was the first significant cash crop produced in Toraja, and was introduced in the mid 19th century, changing the local economy towards commodity production for external markets and gaining an excellent reputation for quality in the international market .
With the commencement of the New Order in 1965, Indonesia's economy developed and opened to foreign investment. In Toraja, a coffee plantation and factory was established by Key Coffee of Japan, and Torajan coffee regained a reputation for quality within the growing international specialty coffee sector Multinational oil and mining companies opened new operations in Indonesia during the 1970s and 1980s. Torajans, particularly younger ones, relocated to work for the foreign companies - to Kalimantan for timber and oil, to Papua for mining, to the cities of Sulawesi and Java, and many went to Malaysia. The out-migration of Torajans was steady until 1985. and has continued since, with remittances sent back by emigre Torajans performing an important role within the contemporary economy.
Tourism commenced in Toraja in the 1970s, and accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s. Between 1984 and 1997, a significant number of Torajans obtained their incomes from tourism, working in and owning hotels, as tour guides, drivers, or selling souvenirs. With the rise of political and economic instability in Indonesia in the late 1990s - including religious conflicts elsewhere on Sulawesi - tourism in Tana Toraja has declined dramatically. Toraja continues to be a well known origin for Indonesian coffee, grown by both smallholders and plantation estates, although migration, remittances and off-farm income is considered far more important to most households, even those in rural areas.
TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE
Before the 1970s, Toraja was almost unknown to Western tourism. In 1971, about 50 Europeans visited Tana Toraja. In 1972, at least 400 visitors attended the funeral ritual of Puang of Sangalla, the highest-ranking nobleman in Tana Toraja and the so-called "last pure-blooded Toraja noble." The event was documented by National Geographic and broadcast in several European countries. In 1976, about 12,000 tourists visited the regency and in 1981, Torajan sculpture was exhibited in major North American museums. "The land of the heavenly kings of Tana Toraja", as written in the exhibition brochure, embraced the outside world.
In 1984, the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism declared Tana Toraja Regency the prima donna of South Sulawesi. Tana Toraja was heralded as "the second stop after Bali". Tourism was increasing dramatically: by 1985, a total number of 150,000 foreigners had visited the Regency (in addition to 80,000 domestic tourists), and the annual number of foreign visitors was recorded at 40,000 in 1989. Souvenir stands appeared in Rantepao, the cultural center of Toraja, roads were sealed at the most-visited tourist sites, new hotels and tourist-oriented restaurants were opened, and an airstrip was opened in the Regency in 1981.
Tourism developers have marketed Tana Toraja as an exotic adventure - an area rich in culture and off the beaten track. Western tourists expected to see stone-age villages and pagan funerals. Toraja is for tourists who have gone as far as Bali and are willing to see more of the wild, "untouched" islands. However, they were more likely to see a Torajan wearing a hat and denim, living in a Christian society. Tourists felt that the tongkonan and other Torajan rituals had been preconceived to make profits, and complained that the destination was too commercialized. This has resulted in several clashes between Torajans and tourism developers, whom Torajans see as outsiders.
A clash between local Torajan leaders and the South Sulawesi provincial government (as a tourist developer) broke out in 1985. The government designated 18 Toraja villages and burial sites as traditional tourist attractions. Consequently, zoning restrictions were applied to these areas, such that Torajans themselves were barred from changing their tongkonans and burial sites. The plan was opposed by some Torajan leaders, as they felt that their rituals and traditions were being determined by outsiders. As a result, in 1987, the Torajan village of Kété Kesú and several other designated tourist attractions closed their doors to tourists. This closure lasted only a few days, as the villagers found it too difficult to survive without the income from selling souvenirs.
Tourism has also transformed Toraja society. Originally, there was a ritual which allowed commoners to marry nobles (puang) and thereby gain nobility for their children. However, the image of Torajan society created for the tourists, often by "lower-ranking" guides, has eroded its traditional strict hierarchy. High status is not as esteemed in Tana Toraja as it once was. Many low-ranking men can declare themselves and their children nobles by gaining enough wealth through work outside the region and then marrying a noble woman.
WIKIPEDIA
Former JPMorgan Banker: Exploiting Consumers Is ‘The Purpose Of The Banking Organization’
By Travis Waldron on Nov 18, 2011
Wall Street banks, largely spared from the economic ruin felt by millions of Americans since the financial crisis of 2008, have returned to profitability, generating higher profits in the two-and-a-half years since the crisis than they did in nearly eight years preceding it. But that hasn’t stopped them from seeking new ways to generate revenue — like Bank of America’s proposed $5-a-month debit card fee or the millions banks have made from charging consumers to receive unemployment benefits or food stamps.
If all this makes Americans feel like Wall Street banks only view them as money-making tools, well, that’s because the banks apparently do.
According to David Mooney, a former JPMorgan Chase employee, Wall Street banks see consumers as an “income stream” to exploit for profit-making purposes, Reuters reports:
David Mooney, chief executive officer of Alliant Credit Union in Chicago, one of the nation’s larger credit unions, used to work at a one of Wall Street’s top banks, JPMorgan Chase. There’s a vast cultural gap between Wall Street and his new world, he says: Old friends from the Street, he says, now jokingly refer to him as a “socialist.” A credit union is supposed to be run in the interests of all members, he says, while commercial bankers tend to see consumers as customers who can be “exploited” by layering on more fees.
Says Mooney: “I don’t say this lightly, but the consumer is simply an income stream and exploiting that is the purpose of the banking organization.”
Mooney’s bluntness may seem shocking, but his assessment shouldn’t. Wall Street banks made millions profiting off shoddy mortgage lending practices, setting the stage for the housing collapse that plunged millions of Americans into foreclosure. They made a mess of the foreclosure process, using robo-signers to speed foreclosures and foreclosing on homes they either didn’t own or that weren’t even in foreclosure. They sold deals to investors that they knew would fail, and took advantage of customers with outrageous overdraft, credit card, and other fees.
In the aftermath of the financial crisis and the horrors it exposed, Wall Street banks spent millions to prevent the passage of financial regulatory reform. Once the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act passed, they spent just as much trying to shape its rules. They opposed the formation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the agency tasked with protecting consumers from predatory banking practices, and in concert with their Republican friends in Congress, have fought to shape who will lead the bureau and how it will work.
Unfortunately for Wall Street, it didn’t take blunt assessments like Mooney’s for Americans to take action. In October, 650,000 Americans joined credit unions, which, as Mooney noted, are “supposed to be run in the interests of all members.” 40,000 more joined them on Bank Transfer Day earlier this month.
Wall Street, meanwhile, continues to ignore America’s anger at it, sipping champagne from rooftops while protesters march below.
BREST 1946 – 1960 ex JOHN MAC LEAN
Sur les 75 LIBERTY SHIPS acquis par le Gouvernement Français, les Services Contractuels des Messageries Maritimes en demandèrent 6. Le service commercial n'avait pas beaucoup d'enthousiasme pour exploiter ces navires, plus lents que ceux d'avant guerre, pourvus d'un seul entrepont, avec une cale de 3000 m3 desservie seulement par deux mâts de charge de 10 t ou une bigue de 50 tonnes.
Le Commandant ''Remise'', chef du service Maritime, et le service Technique surent rendre ces navires mieux exploitables en installant deux mâts de charge et deux treuils sur l'arrière de la cale 2. Finalement ces navires rendirent d'énormes services, aptes à tous les transports y compris celui des liquides dans les 600 m3 de deep-tanks de la cale 1.
Aussi la nouvelle Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes exploitera-t-elle en même temps jusqu'à 19 de ces navires sans compter une douzaine d'affrétés du même type.
Le premier livré à la Compagnie le 6 décembre 1946 fut le LES GLIÈRES ex ROYAL J. COPPELAND
Construit à Richmond USA. Coque N° 499
1942 le 14 septembre : Pose de la 1ère tôle
1942 le 23 octobre : Lancement.
1947 Vente à la France. Cédé à La Cie Générale Transatlantique.
1949 le 21 juillet - Rétrocédé par la Compagnie Générale Maritime
CARACTÉRISTIQUES :
Longueur 134.57 m HT et 129.8 m entre PP
Largeur : 17.37 m
Jauge brute : 7.212 tjb
Jauge nette : 4.380 tonneaux
Port en Lourd : 10.820 tonnes
Déplacement : 14.500 tonnes
Capacité : 13.000 m3
Ballast et deep-tanks : 2.800 m3
5 Cales desservies par 12 mâts de charge de 5 tonnes (10 mâts à l'origine)
2 bigues de 15 et 10 tonnes. (La bigue de 30 tonnes d'origine a été remplacée par 2 mâts de charge de 5 tonnes)
Livré avec les emménagements pour le transport de 550 hommes de troupe ou prisonniers de guerre.
PROPULSION :
Une machine alternative à triple expansion. HP. MP et BP.
2 chaudières à tubes d'au et surchauffe Babcock Wilcox. Timbrées à 16.9 kg/cm2.
Chauffe au mazout. 4 brûleurs
Puissance : 2500 cv
Vitesse : 11 nœuds
Puissance électrique : 60 KW
PERSONNEL :
État major : 9 officiers
Équipage : 13 marins au service pont
9 mécaniciens
6 ADSG (Agents du Service Général)
2 Novices 1 au pont et 1 à la machine
LIGNES DESSERVIES :
1949-1954 Voyages sur la ligne d'Extrême-Orient.
1954-1957 Voyages sur la ligne des Indes.
1958 Transformé pour transporter des voitures Renault de Rouen aux USA et du charbon au retour 1956 Expédition de Suez du 11 novembre 1956 au 31 décembre 1956.
ÉVÉNEMENTS :
1955 Durant le transfert des populations du Nord Viêt-Nam à le suite des accords de Genève un garçon naitra à bord et sera baptisé par le Commandant Legros ''Nguyen Van Brest''
1955 le 28 décembre : Sortant vers 15 h de Dunkerque, il est drossé sur la jetée Ouest et il crève un ballast. Revenu au port il repartira le 31 pour Anvers, ne pouvant réparer à Dunkerque faute de cale sèche disponible.
1955 le 31 L'officier Radio descendu à terre il veut un taxi le soir pour rentrer à bord, mais un pharmacien se propose de le ramener. Mais le temps est à la tempête et à la pluie, la voiture tomba dans le bassin. Le Commandant prévient Anvers qu'il a appareillé sans radio à bord. Le 1er janvier les pompiers remontèrent la voiture et ses occupants du ''bassin du commerce''
1956 en Mai Prend la route directe de Colombo à Djibouti en passant par le canal ''des un degré'' au Maldives. Arrivera sans encombre. Le Grenoble le même mois par crainte de tomber en panne de combustible, fera demi-tour pour mazouter à Cochin.1959 le 4 mai. Relâche à Messine pour débarquer un malade
1961 le 3 février : A Marseille, une rupture d'une poulie de tête de mât blesse un docker et un matelot Ferdinand Lemitres qui décédera de ses blessures le 6 février.
RETRAIT :
1960 le 26 juin. Vendu il devient le GALAXY Panaméen.
SUITE et FIN :
1960 -1967 GALAXY Panaméen.
1967-1970 ÉLIOS Grec.
1970 Démolition à Taïwan.
Exploitant : Transdev SETRA
Réseau : Mobilien
Ligne : 23
Lieu : Créteil – Préfecture du Val de Marne (Créteil, F-94)
Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/id/34872
The MINUSCA Conduct and Discipline Team (CDT) today organized an educational talk for young girls and boys at the Lakouanga School in Bangui’s 2nd district – part of week-long community outreach activities aimed at tackling sexual exploitation and abuse committed by UN personnel.
Photo: MINUSCA/Herve Cyriaque Serefio
Exploitant : Transdev Montesson Les Rabaux
Réseau : Entre Seine et Forêt
Ligne : 10
Lieu : Gare de Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, F-78)
Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/id/26866
The U.S. Marshals in conjunction with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and state and local partner agencies in 16 geographical locations across the U.S., recovered or located 225 critically-missing youth during Operation We Will Find You, a 10-week national operation which concluded 15 May, 2023. We Will Find You is the first national missing child operation and was focused on geographical areas with high clusters of critically-missing children which included: Massachusetts; the National Capital Region (eastern Virginia, Washington D.C. and Maryland); New Orleans, Louisiana; San Antonio, Texas; Orlando, Florida; Puerto Rico; the U.S. Virgin Islands; Los Angeles, California; Guam; northern Ohio; Detriot, Michigan; South Carolina; Yakima, Washington. Operation We Will Find You presented the USMS with an opportunity to expand and highlight partnerships among law enforcement agencies and NCMEC that resulted in not only finding critically missing children, but also bringing more attention to the epidemic of missing children in America.
(U.S. Marshals Service photo by Bennie J. Davis III)
The Exploited performing at the Ritz, Manchester, as part of the North West Calling Punk Festival on Saturday 16th May 2015
Exploitant : RATP
Réseau : RATP
Ligne : 103
Lieu : École Vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort (Maisons-Alfort, F-94)
Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/id/30104
Exploitant : M.M. Voyages
Réseau : Navette Substitution SNCF Île-de-France
Ligne : Navette Transilien H
Lieu : Gare d'Ermont – Eaubonne (Ermont, F-95)
Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/vehicule/43915
Enrico Caruso’s ascendancy coincided with the dawn of the twentieth century, when the world of opera was moving away from the contrived bel canto (“beautiful singing”) style, with its emphasis on artifice and vibrato, to a verismo (“realism”) approach. The warmth and sincerity of his voice—and personality— shone in this more natural style and set the standard for contemporary greats like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and José Carreras. Through his exploitation of the nascent phonograph industry, Caruso is also largely responsible for the sweeping interest in opera of the 1910s and ’20s. And for this, Stanley Jackson wrote in his book Caruso, he may never be rivaled, for later tenors could not hope to find themselves in a similarly fortuitous position and thus would most certainly “find it more difficult to win such universal affection as the bubbly, warm-hearted little Neapolitan whose voice soared and sobbed from the first wheezy phonographs to bring a new magic into countless lives.”
Born in Naples, Italy, in 1873, the third of seven children (early sources erroneously state that he was the 18th of 21), Caruso was raised in squalor. His birthplace, according to Jackson, was a “two-storeyed house, flaky with peeling stucco, [accommodating] several families, who shared a solitary cold-water tap on the landing, and like every other dwelling in that locality it lacked indoor sanitation.” As a boy, Caruso received very little formal education; his only training in a social setting came from his church choir, where he displayed a pure voice and a keen memory for songs. More often than not, however, he skipped choir practice to sing with street minstrels for café patrons.
At the age of ten Caruso began working a variety of menial jobs—mechanic, jute weaver—but his passion for singing often led him back to the streets. Eight years later, an aspiring baritone named Eduardo Missiano heard Caruso singing by a local swimming pool. Impressed, Missiano took Caruso to his voice teacher, Guglielmo Vergine. Vergine on hearing Caruso, compared the tenor’s voice to “the wind whistling through the chimney,” Michael Scott recounted in The Great Caruso. Although he disliked Caruso’s Neapolitan café style, flashy gestures, and unrefined and unrestrained vocalizing, Vergine finally agreed to accept Caruso as his student. But “the lessons ended after three years,” John Kobler wrote in American Heritage, “and Caruso’s formal musical training thereafter remained almost as meager as his scholastic education. He could read a score only with difficulty. He played no musical instrument. He sang largely by ear.”
On March 15, 1895, Caruso made his professional debut in L’Amico Francesco, a now-forgotten opera by an amateur composer. He was not an immediate sensation.
For the Record…
Bom Errico Caruso (adopted more formal Enrico for stage), February 27 (some sources say 25), 1873, in Naples, Italy; died of pneumonia and peritonitis in 1921 in Naples; son of Marcellino (a mechanic) and Anna (Baldini) Caruso; married Dorothy Park Benjamin, 1918; children: Gloria; (with Ada Giachetti) Rodolfo, Enrico Jr. Education: Studied voice with Guglielmo Vergine, 1891-94, and Vincenzo Lombardi, 1896-97.
Worked as laborer, including jobs as mechanic and jute weaver, beginning c. 1883; debuted in L’Amico Francesco at Teatro Nuovo, Naples, 1894; expanded repertoire to include La Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, and Faust, among others; first sang Canio in I Pagliacci, 1896, and Rodolfo in La Bohème, 1897; debuted in La Bohème at La Scala, Milan, 1899; performed internationally, including appearances in Moscow, Buenos Aries, Monte Carlo, and London, beginning in 1899; made first recordings, 1902; debuted in U.S. at Metropolitan Opera, New York City, 1903. Appeared in silent films My Cousin and A Splendid Romance, 1918; subject of fictional film biography The Great Caruso, 1950.
Awards: Order of the Commendatore of the Crown of Italy; Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honor; Order of the Crown Eagle of Prussia; honorary captain of the New York City Police Department.
His vocal range was limited; he often had to transpose the musical score down a halftone since he had trouble in the upper register, especially hitting high C. But impresarios who heard Caruso recognized his innate gift and cast him in significant productions such as Faust, Rigoletto, and La Traviata. With stage experience and brief training with another vocal teacher, Vincenzo Lombardo, the singer made steady progress, refining the natural beauty of his voice.
“Who Has Sent You to Me? God?”
In 1897, studying for the part of Rodolpho in Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, Caruso went to the composer’s villa to secure Puccini’s consent of his interpretation. As told by author Jackson, after Caruso sang a few measures of the first-act aria, “Che gelida manima,” Puccini “swivelled in his chair and murmured in amazement, ’Who has sent you to me? God?’”
Caruso’s instrument was “a voice of the South, full of warmth, charm, and lusciousness,” described a commentator of the era who was quoted in Howard Greenfeld’s book Caruso. But what truly set Caruso apart—from his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors—was his ability to eliminate the space between singer and listener, to intensify “the emotional effects upon his audience,” testified American Heritage contributor Kobler. “His vocalized feelings, variously spiritual, earthy, carnal, seemed to resonate within the hearer’s body. Rosa Ponselle, the American soprano who made her debut opposite Caruso, called it “a voice that loves you.’”
And his timbre was matched by sheer power; at the height of his career, Caruso gave concerts in venues as large as New York City’s Yankee Stadium without microphones and was clearly heard by all. Still, he reached his greatest audience, across both distance and time, through the small, recorded medium of the phonograph. “Few performers deserve . . . recognition more than Caruso,” David Hamilton proclaimed in the New York Times. “[His] records made him the universal model for later generations of tenors, while his reputation played a major role in establishing the phonograph socially and economically.”
Recording Pioneer
Caruso made his first recording on April 11, 1902, in a hotel suite in Milan, Italy. Over the remaining 19 years of his life he made an additional 488 recordings, almost all for the Victor label. He earned more than two million dollars from recording alone, the company almost twice that. But, most important, his recordings brought grand opera to the uninitiated. Millions cried along with his version of Canio’s sobbing “Vesti la giubba,” from/Pagliacci. The development of the American opera audience from a rarefied community at the turn of the century to a diverse populace in modern times can be directly attributed to Caruso’s recordings.
But Caruso’s allure was not solely the result of his singing. “Quick to laughter and to tears, amorous, buffoonish,... speaking a comically fractured English, round and paunchy, Caruso presented an image that appealed enormously to multitudes of ordinary Americans,” Kobler pointed out. Indeed, his offstage behavior was as interesting to the public as that of his onstage personas. He had numerous affairs with women, which often ended in court. He had an 11-year relationship, beginning in 1897, with soprano Ada Giachetti, who had left her husband and son for the much younger tenor. She bore Caruso two sons, then ran off with the family chauffeur. Three years later, Giachetti sued Caruso for attempting to damage her career and for theft of her jewelry. The suit was eventually dismissed.
Offstage Shenanigans
Caruso was not exonerated, however, in what became known as the “Monkey House Case.” On November 16, 1906, Caruso went to the Monkey House in the Central Park Zoo, one of his favorite retreats in his adopted hometown of New York City. There a young woman accused him of pinching her bottom. A policeman on the scene immediately took Caruso—confused and sobbing—to jail. The woman failed to appear at the consequent trial, and police were unable to produce any witnesses other than the arresting officer, who turned out to have been best man at the accuser’s wedding. The judge found Caruso guilty of disorderly conduct and fined him ten dollars. The public, for its part, though initially unsure of Caruso’s innocence, soon returned to its thunderous approval of his performances.
Despite these episodes, Caruso’s life outside the theater was not entirely tumultuous. His marriage to Dorothy Park Benjamin in 1918 was happy and secure. His celebrated earnings allowed him to collect art, stamps, and coins. His clothing and furnishings were luxurious. He ate with gusto. And he was extremely generous. A gifted caricaturist, Caruso often gave drawings away. He would fill his pockets with gold coins and shower stagehands with them at the end of Christmastime productions. He also supported many family members, gave numerous charity concerts, and helped raise millions of dollars for the Allied cause during World War I. This remarkable man even paid his taxes early. “If I wait, something might happen to me, then it would be hard to collect,” Caruso reasoned, as recounted by Kobler. “Now I pay, then if something happen to me the money belongs to the United States, and that is good.”
Caruso’s expansive approach to life, however, rendered his own short. Constant recording and performance demands and the singer’s unchecked appetites took their toll on his health; he died in Naples, in 1921, from pneumonia and peritonitis. He was 48 years old. “Caruso may have been a greater master of comedy than tragedy,” Great Caruso author Scott wrote, “yet there was no levity in his approach to his art, for as each year passed and he became an ever more celebrated singer, his fame—ably demonstrated by frequent new issues of ever improving records—made increasing demands of him. In those last years he rode a tiger.”
Selected discography
Enrico Caruso: 21 Favorite Arias, RCA, 1987.
Enrico Caruso, Pearl, 1988.
Enrico Caruso in Arias, Duets, and Songs, Supraphon, 1988.
Caruso in Opera, Nimbus, 1989.
Caruso in Song, Nimbus, 1990.
The Compíete Caruso, BMG Classics, 1990.
Enrico Caruso in Opera: Early New York Recordings (1904-06), Conifer, 1990.
The Caruso Edition: Volume 1 (1902-1908), Pearl, 1991.
The Caruso Edition: Volume 2 (1908-1912), Pearl, 1991.
The Caruso Edition: Volume 3 (1912-1916), Pearl, 1991.
The Caruso Edition: Volume 4 (1916-1921),, Pearl, 1991.
Caruso in Ensemble, Nimbus, 1992.
Addio Mia Bella Napoli, Replay/Qualiton, 1993.
Sources
Books
Caruso, Enrico, Jr., and Andrew Farkas, Enrico Caruso: My Father and My Family, Amadeus Press, 1990.
Greenfeld, Howard, Caruso, Putnam, 1983.
Jackson, Stanley, Caruso, Stein & Day, 1972.
Scott, Michael, The Great Caruso, Knopf, 1988.
Periodicals
American Heritage, February/March 1984.
Economist, March 9, 1991.
New Republic, August 8, 1988.
New York Times, January 6, 1991.
—Rob Nagel
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#enrico-picciotto, enrico picciotto
DUP MLA Lord Morrow and Party Leader Peter Robinson pictured at the launch of www.givinghopeni.com to promote the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill which Lord Morrow is taking through the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Journée de sensibilisation de masse sur la prévention de l’exploitation et de l’abus sexuels. 5eme Ardt. Bangui, le 30 août 2017
Photo UN/ Dany Balepe
The exploitation rights for this text are the property of the Vienna Tourist Board. This text may be reprinted free of charge until further notice, even partially and in edited form. Forward sample copy to: Vienna Tourist Board, Media Management, Invalidenstraße 6, 1030 Vienna; media.rel@wien.info. All information in this text without guarantee.
Author: Andreas Nierhaus, Curator of Architecture/Wien Museum
Last updated January 2014
Architecture in Vienna
Vienna's 2,000-year history is present in a unique density in the cityscape. The layout of the center dates back to the Roman city and medieval road network. Romanesque and Gothic churches characterize the streets and squares as well as palaces and mansions of the baroque city of residence. The ring road is an expression of the modern city of the 19th century, in the 20th century extensive housing developments set accents in the outer districts. Currently, large-scale urban development measures are implemented; distinctive buildings of international star architects complement the silhouette of the city.
Due to its function as residence of the emperor and European power center, Vienna for centuries stood in the focus of international attention, but it was well aware of that too. As a result, developed an outstanding building culture, and still today on a worldwide scale only a few cities can come up with a comparable density of high-quality architecture. For several years now, Vienna has increased its efforts to connect with its historical highlights and is drawing attention to itself with some spectacular new buildings. The fastest growing city in the German-speaking world today most of all in residential construction is setting standards. Constants of the Viennese architecture are respect for existing structures, the palpability of historical layers and the dialogue between old and new.
Culmination of medieval architecture: the Stephansdom
The oldest architectural landmark of the city is St. Stephen's Cathedral. Under the rule of the Habsburgs, defining the face of the city from the late 13th century until 1918 in a decisive way, the cathedral was upgraded into the sacral monument of the political ambitions of the ruling house. The 1433 completed, 137 meters high southern tower, by the Viennese people affectionately named "Steffl", is a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture in Europe. For decades he was the tallest stone structure in Europe, until today he is the undisputed center of the city.
The baroque residence
Vienna's ascension into the ranks of the great European capitals began in Baroque. Among the most important architects are Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt. Outside the city walls arose a chain of summer palaces, including the garden Palais Schwarzenberg (1697-1704) as well as the Upper and Lower Belvedere of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1714-22). Among the most important city palaces are the Winter Palace of Prince Eugene (1695-1724, now a branch of the Belvedere) and the Palais Daun-Kinsky (auction house in Kinsky 1713-19). The emperor himself the Hofburg had complemented by buildings such as the Imperial Library (1722-26) and the Winter Riding School (1729-34). More important, however, for the Habsburgs was the foundation of churches and monasteries. Thus arose before the city walls Fischer von Erlach's Karlskirche (1714-39), which with its formal and thematic complex show façade belongs to the major works of European Baroque. In colored interior rooms like that of St. Peter's Church (1701-22), the contemporary efforts for the synthesis of architecture, painting and sculpture becomes visible.
Upgrading into metropolis: the ring road time (Ringstraßenzeit)
Since the Baroque, reflections on extension of the hopelessly overcrowed city were made, but only Emperor Franz Joseph ordered in 1857 the demolition of the fortifications and the connection of the inner city with the suburbs. 1865, the Ring Road was opened. It is as the most important boulevard of Europe an architectural and in terms of urban development achievement of the highest rank. The original building structure is almost completely preserved and thus conveys the authentic image of a metropolis of the 19th century. The public representational buildings speak, reflecting accurately the historicism, by their style: The Greek Antique forms of Theophil Hansen's Parliament (1871-83) stood for democracy, the Renaissance of the by Heinrich Ferstel built University (1873-84) for the flourishing of humanism, the Gothic of the Town Hall (1872-83) by Friedrich Schmidt for the medieval civic pride.
Dominating remained the buildings of the imperial family: Eduard van der Nüll's and August Sicardsburg's Opera House (1863-69), Gottfried Semper's and Carl Hasenauer's Burgtheater (1874-88), their Museum of Art History and Museum of Natural History (1871-91) and the Neue (New) Hofburg (1881-1918 ). At the same time the ring road was the preferred residential area of mostly Jewish haute bourgeoisie. With luxurious palaces the families Ephrussi, Epstein or Todesco made it clear that they had taken over the cultural leadership role in Viennese society. In the framework of the World Exhibition of 1873, the new Vienna presented itself an international audience. At the ring road many hotels were opened, among them the Hotel Imperial and today's Palais Hansen Kempinski.
Laboratory of modernity: Vienna around 1900
Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06) was one of the last buildings in the Ring road area Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06), which with it façade, liberated of ornament, and only decorated with "functional" aluminum buttons and the glass banking hall now is one of the icons of modern architecture. Like no other stood Otto Wagner for the dawn into the 20th century: His Metropolitan Railway buildings made the public transport of the city a topic of architecture, the church of the Psychiatric hospital at Steinhofgründe (1904-07) is considered the first modern church.
With his consistent focus on the function of a building ("Something impractical can not be beautiful"), Wagner marked a whole generation of architects and made Vienna the laboratory of modernity: in addition to Joseph Maria Olbrich, the builder of the Secession (1897-98) and Josef Hoffmann, the architect of the at the western outskirts located Purkersdorf Sanatorium (1904) and founder of the Vienna Workshop (Wiener Werkstätte, 1903) is mainly to mention Adolf Loos, with the Loos House at the square Michaelerplatz (1909-11) making architectural history. The extravagant marble cladding of the business zone stands in maximal contrast, derived from the building function, to the unadorned facade above, whereby its "nudity" became even more obvious - a provocation, as well as his culture-critical texts ("Ornament and Crime"), with which he had greatest impact on the architecture of the 20th century. Public contracts Loos remained denied. His major works therefore include villas, apartment facilities and premises as the still in original state preserved Tailor salon Knize at Graben (1910-13) and the restored Loos Bar (1908-09) near the Kärntner Straße (passageway Kärntner Durchgang).
Between the Wars: International Modern Age and social housing
After the collapse of the monarchy in 1918, Vienna became capital of the newly formed small country of Austria. In the heart of the city, the architects Theiss & Jaksch built 1931-32 the first skyscraper in Vienna as an exclusive residential address (Herrengasse - alley 6-8). To combat the housing shortage for the general population, the social democratic city government in a globally unique building program within a few years 60,000 apartments in hundreds of apartment buildings throughout the city area had built, including the famous Karl Marx-Hof by Karl Ehn (1925-30). An alternative to the multi-storey buildings with the 1932 opened International Werkbundsiedlung was presented, which was attended by 31 architects from Austria, Germany, France, Holland and the USA and showed models for affordable housing in greenfield areas. With buildings of Adolf Loos, André Lurçat, Richard Neutra, Gerrit Rietveld, the Werkbundsiedlung, which currently is being restored at great expense, is one of the most important documents of modern architecture in Austria.
Modernism was also expressed in significant Villa buildings: The House Beer (1929-31) by Josef Frank exemplifies the refined Wiener living culture of the interwar period, while the house Stonborough-Wittgenstein (1926-28, today Bulgarian Cultural Institute), built by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein together with the architect Paul Engelmann for his sister Margarete, by its aesthetic radicalism and mathematical rigor represents a special case within contemporary architecture.
Expulsion, war and reconstruction
After the "Anschluss (Annexation)" to the German Reich in 1938, numerous Jewish builders, architects (female and male ones), who had been largely responsible for the high level of Viennese architecture, have been expelled from Austria. During the Nazi era, Vienna remained largely unaffected by structural transformations, apart from the six flak towers built for air defense of Friedrich Tamms (1942-45), made of solid reinforced concrete which today are present as memorials in the cityscape.
The years after the end of World War II were characterized by the reconstruction of the by bombs heavily damaged city. The architecture of those times was marked by aesthetic pragmatism, but also by the attempt to connect with the period before 1938 and pick up on current international trends. Among the most important buildings of the 1950s are Roland Rainer's City Hall (1952-58), the by Oswald Haerdtl erected Wien Museum at Karlsplatz (1954-59) and the 21er Haus of Karl Schwanzer (1958-62).
The youngsters come
Since the 1960s, a young generation was looking for alternatives to the moderate modernism of the reconstruction years. With visionary designs, conceptual, experimental and above all temporary architectures, interventions and installations, Raimund Abraham, Günther Domenig, Eilfried Huth, Hans Hollein, Walter Pichler and the groups Coop Himmelb(l)au, Haus-Rucker-Co and Missing Link rapidly got international attention. Although for the time being it was more designed than built, was the influence on the postmodern and deconstructivist trends of the 1970s and 1980s also outside Austria great. Hollein's futuristic "Retti" candle shop at Charcoal Market/Kohlmarkt (1964-65) and Domenig's biomorphic building of the Central Savings Bank in Favoriten (10th district of Vienna - 1975-79) are among the earliest examples, later Hollein's Haas-Haus (1985-90), the loft conversion Falkestraße (1987/88) by Coop Himmelb(l)au or Domenig's T Center (2002-04) were added. Especially Domenig, Hollein, Coop Himmelb(l)au and the architects Ortner & Ortner (ancient members of Haus-Rucker-Co) by orders from abroad the new Austrian and Viennese architecture made a fixed international concept.
MuseumQuarter and Gasometer
Since the 1980s, the focus of building in Vienna lies on the compaction of the historic urban fabric that now as urban habitat of high quality no longer is put in question. Among the internationally best known projects is the by Ortner & Ortner planned MuseumsQuartier in the former imperial stables (competition 1987, 1998-2001), which with institutions such as the MUMOK - Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig, the Leopold Museum, the Kunsthalle Wien, the Architecture Center Vienna and the Zoom Children's Museum on a wordwide scale is under the largest cultural complexes. After controversies in the planning phase, here an architectural compromise between old and new has been achieved at the end, whose success as an urban stage with four million visitors (2012) is overwhelming.
The dialogue between old and new, which has to stand on the agenda of building culture of a city that is so strongly influenced by history, also features the reconstruction of the Gasometer in Simmering by Coop Himmelb(l)au, Wilhelm Holzbauer, Jean Nouvel and Manfred Wehdorn (1999-2001). Here was not only created new housing, but also a historical industrial monument reinterpreted into a signal in the urban development area.
New Neighborhood
In recent years, the major railway stations and their surroundings moved into the focus of planning. Here not only necessary infrastructural measures were taken, but at the same time opened up spacious inner-city residential areas and business districts. Among the prestigious projects are included the construction of the new Vienna Central Station, started in 2010 with the surrounding office towers of the Quartier Belvedere and the residential and school buildings of the Midsummer quarter (Sonnwendviertel). Europe's largest wooden tower invites here for a spectacular view to the construction site and the entire city. On the site of the former North Station are currently being built 10,000 homes and 20,000 jobs, on that of the Aspangbahn station is being built at Europe's greatest Passive House settlement "Euro Gate", the area of the North Western Railway Station is expected to be developed from 2020 for living and working. The largest currently under construction residential project but can be found in the north-eastern outskirts, where in Seaside Town Aspern till 2028 living and working space for 40,000 people will be created.
In one of the "green lungs" of Vienna, the Prater, 2013, the WU campus was opened for the largest University of Economics of Europe. Around the central square spectacular buildings of an international architect team from Great Britain, Japan, Spain and Austria are gathered that seem to lead a sometimes very loud conversation about the status quo of contemporary architecture (Hitoshi Abe, BUSarchitektur, Peter Cook, Zaha Hadid, NO MAD Arquitectos, Carme Pinós).
Flying high
International is also the number of architects who have inscribed themselves in the last few years with high-rise buildings in the skyline of Vienna and make St. Stephen's a not always unproblematic competition. Visible from afar is Massimiliano Fuksas' 138 and 127 meters high elegant Twin Tower at Wienerberg (1999-2001). The monolithic, 75-meter-high tower of the Hotel Sofitel at the Danube Canal by Jean Nouvel (2007-10), on the other hand, reacts to the particular urban situation and stages in its top floor new perspectives to the historical center on the other side.
Also at the water stands Dominique Perrault's DC Tower (2010-13) in the Danube City - those high-rise city, in which since the start of construction in 1996, the expansion of the city north of the Danube is condensed symbolically. Even in this environment, the slim and at the same time striking vertically folded tower of Perrault is beyond all known dimensions; from its Sky Bar, from spring 2014 on you are able to enjoy the highest view of Vienna. With 250 meters, the tower is the tallest building of Austria and almost twice as high as the St. Stephen's Cathedral. Vienna, thus, has acquired a new architectural landmark which cannot be overlooked - whether it also has the potential to become a landmark of the new Vienna, only time will tell. The architectural history of Vienna, where European history is presence and new buildings enter into an exciting and not always conflict-free dialogue with a great and outstanding architectural heritage, in any case has yet to offer exciting chapters.
Info: The folder "Architecture: From Art Nouveau to the Presence" is available at the Vienna Tourist Board and can be downloaded on www.wien.info/media/files/guide-architecture-in-wien.pdf.
Mullian the Eagle Hawk is a very important part of the Dreaming, especially around the Victoria and New South Wales areas. There are many tales about his exploits.
These magnificent birds are Australia’s largest birds of prey. Often seen effortlessly soaring the wind drafts, Wedge-tailed Eagle is an inspiring sight.
A Dreaming[1] about the Wedge-tailed Eagle states he is constantly seeking out the blanket lizard, which had an illicit affair with his wife; they are mortal enemies to this day. The negative effects of betrayal, revenge or jealousy may be infringing upon your thoughts and actions if Wedge-tailed Eagle is caught catching a lizard! (Maybe forgiveness is the lesson and challenge here?)
Many Dreamings attribute the carnivorous attributes of eagles, hawks and kites to a slight or wrong committed to them in the Dreaming and of which they still retain resentment. Eagle is the symbol of forgiveness if resentment colours your day.
Universally, eagles are a symbol of power; they can rise over the world, seeing and understanding all. Possessing keen eyesight, they can have a higher perspective on things. They bypass “not seeing the forest for the trees” and can indicate a talent for problem-solving. If a Wedge-tailed Eagle crosses your path in flight, remember the ability you have in being able to take flight and view your world from a higher perspective, to see the bigger picture. Eagle can see the smallest movement and act quickly. You too can act as soon as you see your goal – don’t wait, or your chance, like a startled rabbit, may be gone!
Eagle can also relate to the ego. A flying ego, however, often misses many opportunities for growth because the focus revolves around the Self. Eagles are powerful birds and are worshipped by some cultures. Investing energy on self-aggrandisement, or putting another on a pedestal, does not allow for personal growth and development ‘inside’ instead it causes a narrow, over-inflated and exaggerated view of things. This is the eagle that is hit by the truck on the highway! He’s too engrossed in satisfying his appetite (albeit for roadkill) and forgets he is part of a larger system of life.
Wedge-tailed Eagle is a good indicator to work on your concept of Self, to do some groundwork and confront those things that challenge your views on who you really are, or push you to practice the art of forgiveness. Those “flying high like an eagle” dreams are great, yet it is action that facilitates their manifestation – as well as that great perspective Eagle offers you.
Mountford, Charles P. “The Dreamtime
Lego look alike from China, appropriately named Exploiter. This one is based on the Lego Technic 8283 alternate design.
Le Château de Josselin est situé à Josselin, commune française du département du Morbihan en Bretagne.
Guéthénoc, vicomte de Porhoët, de Rohan et de Guéméné, membre de la famille des comtes de Rennes, aurait construit un premier château vers l'an 1008. Il exploitait un site de haute valeur militaire et commerciale comprenant un surplomb rocheux dominant en à-pic la rivière Oust. L'existence depuis le IXe siècle d'un pèlerinage à la Basilique Notre-Dame du Roncier (tous les huit septembre) ajoute beaucoup à la richesse des habitants et de leurs seigneurs. Ce pélerinage est d'ailleurs le plus important du Morbihan, après celui de Sainte-Anne-d'Auray.
En 1154, Eudon de Porhoët, beau-père, régent et tuteur du jeune duc de Bretagne, Conan IV, rassemble des seigneurs bretons pour priver son beau-fils de ses droits. Il sera défait par Henri II Plantagenêt, roi d'Angleterre et nouveau duc d'Anjou, auprès duquel s'était réfugié Conan IV. Henri II viendra en personne diriger la démolition du château et faire semer du sel dans les ruines.
Détail de la statue équestre d'Olivier de Clisson
Olivier V de Clisson, qui acquiert la seigneurie en 1370, reconstruit une imposante citadelle munie de huit tours et d'un donjon de 90 mètres. Il marie sa fille, Béatrix, à Alain VIII de Rohan, héritier des vicomtes de Rohan, dont le château était à une vingtaine de kilomètres.
En 1488, le duc de Bretagne François II prend le château et le démolit partiellement. Sa fille, Anne de Bretagne, le restitue à Jean II de Rohan, arrière-petit-fils d'Olivier de Clisson.
Celui-ci le transforme et construit dans l'enceinte un logis de plaisance avec une très belle façade de granit sculpté qui est un des premiers exemples de la Renaissance en France, car il avait fait venir des artistes et ouvriers italiens. Par reconnaissance, il fait sculpter de nombreux A surmontés d'une cordelière, emblème de la Duchesse-Reine.
Bannis de Josselin du fait de leur adhésion au protestantisme, les Rohan doivent laisser le gouverneur de Bretagne, le duc de Mercœur, faire de leur château une base pour la Ligue opposée au nouveau roi Henri IV.
En 1603, lors de l'érection de la vicomté de Rohan en duché-pairie par le roi Henri IV, Henri II de Rohan transfère le siège de son pouvoir au château de Pontivy. Le cardinal de Richelieu fait démanteler en 1629 le donjon et quatre et tours et annonce au duc Henri II, chef des insurgés protestants: « Monseigneur, je viens de jeter une bonne boule dans votre jeu de quilles ! »
Au XVIIIe siècle, le château n'est plus occupé et il devient prison et entrepôt pendant la Révolution et l'Empire. En 1822, la duchesse de Berry, lors de sa tournée aventureuse, convainc le duc de Rohan de le restaurer.
Il est actuellement toujours habité par le quatorzième duc de Rohan, Josselin de Rohan, sénateur, ancien président de la région Bretagne de 1992 à 2004, membre de l'UMP et fidèle de Jacques Chirac .
On peut visiter la cour et quelques pièces du rez-de-chaussée où sont exposés des meubles anciens (dont la table ayant servi à la signature de l'édit de Nantes), des portraits familiaux, des cadeaux royaux et une statue équestre d'Olivier V de Clisson par Emmanuel Frémiet. Dans les anciennes écuries a été installé le Musée de poupées.
L'imposante citadelle munie de huit tours et d'un donjon de 90 mètres date du XVe siècle a été partiellement détruite et un logis de plaisance avec une très belle façade de granit sculpté, un des premiers exemples de la Renaissance en France le remplace et a été restauré au XIXe siècle.
Le jardin à la française créé au début du XXe siècle par le paysagiste Achille Duchêne s’étend devant la façade Renaissance du château. Les buis et des ifs taillés encadrent les pelouses.
Une roseraie a été aménagée en 2001 sous le direction du paysagiste Louis Benech. Elle comporte 160 rosiers appartenant à 40 variétés différentes
Un parc à l'anglaise lui aussi créé par le paysagiste Achille Duchêne et revu par Louis Benech s'étend au pied des remparts, le long d’un cours d’eau. Ce parc présente des espèces rares d’azalées, de camélias et de nombreux rhododendrons et des arbres centenaires. Il est ouvert au public pour les Journées du Patrimoine et Rendez-vous au jardin .
le chateau de Josselin est très lié à l'alchimie notamment ses cheminées et sa cour extérieure sur le parc.Il s'inscrit dans le patrimoine de Brocéliande qui n'appartient pas qu'aux druides .En effet , il est tout à fait possible de lire de maniere alchimique la vita merlini de G. de Monmouth ainsi que le mythe de Brocéliande lui même.. et si on suit le parcours des salles du chateau on s'aperçoit que ce dernier met en évidence une progression alchimique qui peut se retrouver dans la chevalerie et dans les degrés d'élévation maçonnique , car le corrélat est précisément dans ce savoir acquis par le premier des Josselin .
Source wikipedia
Round Table on the role of European institutions in the exploitation of Ariane 6 and Vega-C, at the ESA pavilion, during the Paris Air and Space Show, on 22 June 2017.
Satellites from European institutions will play a major role during the exploitation of the new family of ESA-developed launchers, Vega-C and Ariane 6 which will be operative from 2019/2020.
In this round table, high level representatives from important European institutions were invited to debate how they can contribute to guarantee a level playing field for Ariane 6 and Vega-C exploitation with respect to competitors that can count on a very large number of institutional payloads.
Participants : Pierre Delsaux, European Commission, Deputy-Director General; Alan Ratier, Eumetsat, Director General; Stephan Israel, Arianespace, CEO; Joel Barre, CNES, Deputy Director General; Wolfgang Scheremet, German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, Director-General Industrial Policy; Roberto Battiston, ASI, President; Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA, Director of Space Transportation; Gaele Winters, former ESA Director of Launchers (moderator).
Credit: ESA–Philippe Sebirot, 2017
© Yves Claudé – 2009 / ycsocio@yahoo.ca
Montréal : charmes et maléfices d’une île laide …
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Vos commentaires et suggestions sont appréciés, soit directement sur le site de flickr.com, soit via mon adresse de courriel (ycsocio@yahoo.ca).
Yves Claudé
ENGLISH / ESPAÑOL / DEUTSCH / ITALIANO / PORTUGUÊS / РУССКИЙ
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YC
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YC
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Ihre Kommentare und Anregungen sind willkommen, entweder direkt auf der Website flickr.com oder über meine E-Mail-Adresse (ycsocio@yahoo.ca).
YC
NB: Questo album « Montréal : fascini e malefici di un'isola brutta » è concepito come un diaporama. Potete lanciarlo a partire dal seguente indirizzo :
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Vostri commenti e suggestioni sono apprezzati, o direttamente sul sito di flickr.com, o via il mio indirizzo di courriel (ycsocio@yahoo).
YC
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YC
NB: Этот альбом "Отель: Обаяния и злые периоды уродливого острова" предназначена как слайд-шоу. Вы можете начать со следующего адреса:
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Tour Eiffel
Pour les articles homonymes, voir Tour Eiffel (homonymie).
Tour Eiffel
Géographie
Pays France
VilleParis
Quartier7e arrondissement
Coordonnées48° 51′ 30″ Nord 2° 17′ 40″ Est
Histoire
Ancien(s) nom(s)« Tour de 300 mètres »
Architecte(s)Stephen Sauvestre
Ingénieur(s)Gustave Eiffel & Cie
Construction1887 - 1889
2 ans, 2 mois et 5 jours
Usage(s)Tour d'observation et de télécommunication
Architecture
Style architecturalTour autoportante en fer puddlé
Protection Inscrit MH (1964)
Hauteur de l'antenne324 m
Hauteur du dernier étage279,11 m
Nombre d'étages4
Nombre d'ascenseurs4 (1/pilier)
Administration
Occupant(s)Société d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE)
Propriétaire(s)Mairie de Paris
Géolocalisation
La tour Eiffel est une tour de fer puddlé de 324 mètres de hauteur (avec antennes)o 1 située à Paris, à l’extrémité nord-ouest du parc du Champ-de-Mars en bordure de la Seine dans le 7e arrondissement. Construite par Gustave Eiffel et ses collaborateurs pour l’Exposition universelle de Paris de 1889, et initialement nommée « tour de 300 mètres », ce monument est devenu le symbole de la capitale française, et un site touristique de premier plan : il s’agit du second site culturel français payant le plus visité en 2011, avec 7,1 millions de visiteurs dont 75 % d'étrangers en 2011, la cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris étant en tête des monuments à l'accès libre avec 13,6 millions de visiteurs estimés1 mais il reste le monument payant le plus visité au monde2,note 1. Elle a accueilli son 250 millionième visiteur en 2010.
D’une hauteur de 312 mètreso 1 à l’origine, la tour Eiffel est restée le monument le plus élevé du monde pendant 41 ans. Le second niveau du troisième étage, appelé parfois quatrième étage, situé à 279,11 m, est la plus haute plateforme d'observation accessible au public de l'Union européenne et la plus haute d'Europe, tant que celle de la Tour Ostankino à Moscou culminant à 337 m demeurera fermée au public, à la suite de l'incendie survenu en l'an 2000. La hauteur de la tour a été plusieurs fois augmentée par l’installation de nombreuses antennes. Utilisée dans le passé pour de nombreuses expériences scientifiques, elle sert aujourd’hui d’émetteur de programmes radiophoniques et télévisés.
Contestée par certains à l'origine, la tour Eiffel fut d'abord, à l'occasion de l'exposition universelle de 1889, la vitrine du savoir-faire technique français. Plébiscitée par le public dès sa présentation à l'exposition, elle a accueilli plus de 200 millions de visiteurs depuis son inaugurationo 2. Sa taille exceptionnelle et sa silhouette immédiatement reconnaissable en ont fait un emblème de Paris.
Imaginée par Maurice Koechlin et Émile Nouguier, respectivement chef du bureau des études et chef du bureau des méthodes d'Eiffel & Cie4, la tour Eiffel est conçue pour être le « clou de l'Exposition de 1889 se tenant à Paris. ». Elle salue également le centenaire de la Révolution française. Le premier plan est réalisé en juin 1884 et amélioré par Stephen Sauvestre, l’architecte en chef des projets de l'entreprise, qui lui apporte plus d'esthétique.
Le 1er mai 1886, le ministre du Commerce et de l'Industrie Édouard Lockroy, fervent défenseur du projet, signe un arrêté qui déclare ouvert « un concours en vue de l’Exposition universelle de 1889 »5. Gustave Eiffel remporte ce concours et une convention du 8 janvier 1887 fixe les modalités d'exploitation de l'édifice. La galerie Vittorio Emanuele II, au centre de Milan, fut une source d'inspiration, pour sa structure métallique.[réf. nécessaire]
Construite en deux ans, deux mois et cinq jours, de 1887 à 1889, par 250 ouvriers, elle est inaugurée, à l'occasion d'une fête de fin de chantier organisée par Gustave Eiffel, le 31 mars 1889o 3. Sa fréquentation s'érode rapidement ; la tour Eiffel ne connaîtra véritablement un succès massif et constant qu'à partir des années 1960, avec l'essor du tourisme international. Elle accueille maintenant plus de six millions de visiteurs chaque année.
Sa hauteur lui a permis de porter le titre de « plus haute structure du monde » jusqu'à la construction en 1930 du Chrysler Building à New York. Située sur le Champ-de-Mars, près de la Seine, dans le 7e arrondissement de Paris, elle est actuellement exploitée par la société d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE). Le site, sur lequel travaillent plus 500 personnes (dont plus de 250 directement employés par la SETE), est ouvert tous les jours de l'annéeo 1.
La tour Eiffel est inscrite aux monuments historiques depuis le 24 juin 19646 et est inscrite au patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO depuis 1991, en compagnie des autres monuments parisiens.
ESPAGNOL ESPANOL
La Torre Eiffel (La Tour Eiffel, en francés), inicialmente nombrada torre de 330 metros (tour de 330 mètres), es una estructura de hierro pudelado diseñada por Maurice Koechlin y Émile Nouguier y construida por el ingeniero francés Gustave Eiffel y sus colaboradores para la Exposición universal de 1889 en París.1
Situada en el extremo del Campo de Marte a la orilla del río Sena, este monumento parisino, símbolo de Francia y su capital, es la estructura más alta de la ciudad y el monumento que cobra entrada más visitado del mundo, con 7,1 millones de turistas en 2011.2 Con una altura de 300 metros, prolongada más tarde con una antena a 325 metros, la Torre Eiffel fue la estructura más elevada del mundo durante 41 años.
Fue construida en dos años, dos meses y cinco días, y en su momento generó cierta controversia entre los artistas de la época, que la veían como un monstruo de hierro.3 Inicialmente utilizada para pruebas del ejército con antenas de comunicación,4 hoy sirve, además de atractivo turístico y como emisora de programas radiofónicos y televisivos.
La Torre Eiffel sobresale en París con sus 300 metros de altura.
Ubicación de la torre en la orilla sur del río Sena, en el extremo del Campo de Marte.
Inicialmente tema de controversia de algunos, la Torre Eiffel sirvió como presentación a la Exposición Universal de París de 1889, la cual acogió a más de 236 millones de visitantes desde su inauguración. Su tamaño excepcional y su silueta inmediatamente reconocible hicieron de la torre un emblema de París.
Concebida en la imaginación de Maurice Koechlin y Émile Nouguier, jefe de la oficina de estudios y jefe de la oficina de métodos, respectivamente, de la compañía "Eiffel & CO", fue pensada para ser el «clavo (centro de atención) de la exposición de 1889 que se celebraría en París», que además celebraría el centenario de la Revolución francesa. El primer plano de la torre fue realizado en junio de 1884 y mejorado por Stephen Sauvestre, el arquitecto principal de los proyectos de la empresa, quien le aportó más estética.
El 1 de mayo de 1886, el Ministro de Comercio e Industria, Édouard Lockroy, entusiasta partidario del proyecto, firmó un decreto que declaraba abierto «un apoyo para la Exposición Universal de 1889». Gustave Eiffel ganó este apoyo económico y un convenio el 8 de enero de 1887 que fijo las modalidades de construcción del edificio.
Construida en dos años, dos meses y cinco días (de 1887 a 1889) por 250 obreros, se inaugura oficialmente el 31 de marzo de 1889. Sufriendo una corrosión muy frecuente, la Torre Eiffel no conocerá verdaderamente un éxito masivo y constante hasta los años sesenta, con el desarrollo del turismo internacional. Ahora acoge a más de seis millones de visitantes cada año.
Sus 300 metros de altura le permitieron llevar el título de «la estructura más alta del mundo» hasta la construcción en 1930 del Edificio Chrysler, en Nueva York. Construida sobre el Campo de Marte cerca del río Sena, en el 7º distrito de París, actualmente es administrada por la "Sociedad para la administración de la torre Eiffel" (Société d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel, SETE). El lugar, que emplea a 500 personas (250 empleados directos del SETE y 250 de los distintos concesionarios instalados sobre el monumento), está abierto todos los días del año.
Exploitant : Transdev Valmy
Réseau : IDF Mobilités – Vallée de Montmorency
Ligne : 14
Lieu : Beauséjour (Enghien-les-Bains, F-95)
Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/vehicule/13992
People responsible for protecting children from across the UK attended a national child sexual exploitation conference last Thursday (21 May) in Manchester.
Hosted by Project Phoenix – Greater Manchester’s multi-agency response to tackling child sexual exploitation, the event showcased the work being done across the region to protect children from abuse.
Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd, Director of Salford City Council and Lead Officer for Project Phoenix Jim Taylor, and Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy all spoke at the event.
Sir Peter Fahy said: “There is still much to do but agencies now work much closer together. There are no easy answers when the nature of an abusive relationship means the victim continues to put themselves at risk. Parents need help in understanding how victims are groomed on the internet and we need to do more so that teachers and peers can recognise the signs of inappropriate and risky relationships.”
Tony Lloyd said: “Project Phoenix stands as an exemplar of partnership working and what can be achieved when partner agencies truly pull together with a single goal in mind. This event is a chance for us to showcase the work being done across the region and teach others what we’ve learnt in our combined efforts to prevent abuse, encourage victims to come forward, and bring offenders to justice.
“But, while we should be proud of our successes so far, we are still on a long journey with much yet to do. I urge everyone – members of the public as well as statutory agencies – to continue prioritising this issue, to continue doing all we can to fight this terrible scourge on our society, and to support those victims that have been through so much.”
Jim Taylor said: “The Project Phoenix CSE Conference provides an invaluable opportunity to share best practice and strengthen our multi-agency response to safeguarding young people. We feel it will be a hugely beneficial day for police officers and those working within the public and third sector with a responsibility for tackling CSE.”
Following the speakers, a selection of practical workshops gave delegates the chance to talk with experts from across Project Phoenix about the work they have done to safeguard children and young people in Greater Manchester.
Project Phoenix is a multi-agency response to CSE across the whole of Greater Manchester. The project brings together police, local authorities, NHS and third sector organisations, using their collective expertise to safeguard vulnerable young people at risk of exploitation and target those who would try to exploit them.
Please visit www.itsnotokay.co.uk for information for children, young people, parents, carers and professionals on how to spot the signs of child sex exploitation and what to do about it.
To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit our website.
You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.
Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.
You can also call anonymously with information about crime to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Crimestoppers is an independent charity who will not want your name, just your information. Your call will not be traced or recorded and you do not have to go to court or give a statement.