View allAll Photos Tagged given
I was given a huge atlas of my city that was discarded by a local high school. The maps included all kinds of information about demographics in Winnipeg. I upcycled the old atlas pages and book covers into 3 new books: One extra large art journal and two average sized guestbooks.
for 365 and FGR invades Any Given Saturday.
Please View Big On Black -- the focus is better that way.
My grandmother was born in Finland. Her family sailed across the Atlantic to Ellis Island and the United States when she was 3. From there, they traveled across the country to live in a tight-knit Finnish Community in Washington State just outside of Vancouver.
I asked her 10 years ago if we could sit down and talk about everything she remembers from growing up. I now have 5 letters, all handwritten by her, complete with hand-drawn maps, of everyone and everything she remembers. They are a treasure to me and I keep them in a safe deposit box. I know if I hadn't asked for her to write them down, the information would be forever lost when she passes away.
She is an amazing and strong woman, one whom I admire greatly. During WWII, when women were needed to take up the jobs the men had left behind, my grandmother flew P-38 Lightnings back and forth across the country so they would be on the correct coast when needed by the soldiers.
She met my grandfather at a church dance. At least that's what SHE says. He says he noticed her one day joyriding with a bunch of girls from his town as they drove down the main street in a convertible they "borrowed" from the neighbor three doors down. She says she would NEVER do anything like that. And then grins like she's back in that car again.
She raised 5 boys, was the child of an alcoholic father, and ran a peppermint farm that my uncle still runs today. She has traveled up and down the entire coasts of Central America - with this gift to befriend anyone. She talked to guerilla soldiers in the jungle, transvestites and drag queens outside a club, the owners of a small fruit stand - learning the life stories of them all and remembering the details so she can share them with me.
I have her eyes. They were a gift passed down to me through my father, and which I have given to my own daughter. I only hope that I have her spunk when I am coming around the bend towards the end of my days. That I have the strength of character that she posses.
I am exceptionally proud to be her granddaughter.
C-FBAQ has been given a new life as Buffalo Airways second L-188 air tanker. This is the frame which was damaged in a landing in March 2012 when one main gear malfunctioned. At the time of these photos, Chuck was working on one of the engines. Nice to see its resurrection and the new colors are nice too! Of note is the nice tribute to former Buffalo Airways Chief Pilot Arnie Schreder, painted on the nose.
9 MAN TOWN LEFT TO RUE MISSED CHANCES
“" We've got to be better than that..."” Manager Lee Ashcroft
Longridge suffered their 2nd League defeat of the season away at Coppull having missed chance after chance, and having given away 3 very poor goals in a 3-2 defeat.
The game finished 10 v 9 as both George Melling and Jordan Tucker were sent off in time added on by the Referee.
Given what a big deal Easter is in Spain, I'm a tad surprised that it seems very low key in Houston. Yes, there are a few Easter egg hunts and token seasonal merchandise in the stores. However, properties and gardens are largely undecorated, unlike the blitz of excess seen everywhere at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
So let's see what the supermercado has on offer this week.
Given the widespread destruction, housing was a priority. ADB built 8,500 new homes in Aceh and repaired 2,500 more.
Read more on:
Exposure: adb.exposure.co/back-to-life
Asian Tsunami of 2004: ADB’s Response and Lessons Learned: www.adb.org/news/features/asian-tsunami-2004-adb-s-respon...
Sunday 5th February 2012 Doors open at 3.00pm - 9.00pm
Our acts are unsuitable for under 18's. £5 on the door but all confirmed performers are free.
We have an amazing sixth line up for you at The New inn Gloucester which includes the usual eclectic mix of acts bands singers and spoken word performers but for February we will have a predominantly large and diverse range of hilarious stand up comedy...lucky lucky Gloucester!!
As usual ARTournament will be giving away £100 in cash for the best audience voted performance of the day. Each member of the audience will be given one vote on the door when they arrive. The performer/s with the most votes at 8.45pm will be presented with £100 in cash-good luck everyone.
IMPORTANT.....PLEASE CAN ALL ACTS SIGN IN AN HOUR BEFORE THEY ARE DUE TO PERFORM AS DUE TO ILLNESS TRAINS PLANES AND AUTOMOBILES WE MAY HAVE TO CHANGE THE TIME SLOTS TO EARLIER OR LATER DEPENDING ON HOW THINGS ARE RUNNING and THERE WILL BE A FILM CREW ON SITE, IF ANYONE OBJECTS TO BEING FILMED CAN YOU PLEASE LET US KNOW ASAP.
On the Elephant Stage we have a good PA, 2 sm58 mics and can use CDs for backing tracks. The Moroccan Stage has a small PA and MIc and is acoustic/spoken word. if you need any help our engineer is James Candler (in friends list) Thanks
Compered by the talented Guy Williams who will also be performing his poetry for us on during the day.
3-3.30pm James Evans-Musician
3.30-3.45pm Lyn Cinderry
3.30-4pm Jim Evans and his tantalising Banjo
4-4.15pm Jeremy Toombs Poet
4.15-4.30pm James Bunting
4.30- 5pm Benita Johnson-Acoustic Set
5pm-5.15pm Alison Hustwitt
5.15-5.30pm Helen Gregory-Poet
5.30-5.40pm Citizen Smith-A poem
5.40-6pm Sophia Marie Bovall
6-6.15pm Debra hannis
6.15-6.30pm Andrew Owens
6.30-7pm Jade Richards Poetess.
7-7.15pm Guy Williams-a poet and also our compere for April.
7.15-7.30 Sarah Snell Pym TBC
7.30-8pm Angus McDressence Clements-very talented local musician who will be treating us to some new music.
8-8.30pm Damon Thomas and his beautiful blues.
Compere for the Elephant Stage is the multi talented hilarious comedy guru Josh Richards. He and Guy Williams are consistently a couple of the audience's favorite performers and we are looking forward to having them on our stages for the whole day.
3-3.30pm Hartley playing some sweet music
3.30-4pm Ratface Russ and his musical box of tricks.
4-4.30pm Shadowlight Sounds
4.30-5pm Rebecca Cant-Novembers favourite singer and £100 cash winner
5-5.15pm Claire Nelson-Our special funny lady and winner of last months audience vote.
5.15-5.30 Jamie Doughty-a special brand of funny
5.30-6pm Our funny Birmingham friends Louise+Nadeem and Lou
6-6.15pm Julie ‘Psycho’Jones-hilarious and winner of dec £100 prize.
6.15-6.30pm Demitris Deech-brilliant, witty, fast stand up
6.30-6.45pm Bambos- special kind of greek Musician-looking forward to this one..
6.45-7pm Matt Leigh-Clever Comedy and brand new material especially for you lot...
7.15-7.30pm Darren Hoskins and his box of comedy tricks
7.30-7.45pm John Bassett-very very funny
7.45-8pm Mark Chatterley-A laugh a minute
8.00-8.45pm Gregory Davies and the Simplistic Scientists-and its Greg's Birthday!
MARCH 2012
Elephant Stage-Bands and Comedy March 2012
Compered by the hilarious Josh Richards and his alter ego the Koala....
3.00-3.30pm Lisa Wilkinson-Acoustic
3.30-3.45pm Alison Hustwitt and her hilarious little songs
3.45-4.10pm Way Out West-a band you have to see to believe!
4.15-4.30pm Darren Hoskins and his box of comedy tricks
4.30-4.50pm Martin Thorne-An amazing blues singer and guitarist
5.00-5.10pm James Rushbrook and his new 2012 comedy set-lucky lucky us
5.15-5.25pm Mark Chatterley-A laugh a minute
5.30-5.45pm Julie ‘Psycho’Jones - Januarys winner and hilarious is an understatement!
5.45-6.00pm Demitris Deech-brilliant, witty, fast stand up and Febs Winner
6.00-6.15pm Josh Richards brings in the Koala-be scared, very scared!
6.15-6.45pm Stephen Grimes will be treating us all to a bit of hip hop
6.45-6.55pm Paul Cook With Some New Stand Up Comedy
7.00-7.30pm Martin Maidment and his infamous band Gagarin
7.30-8.00pm Club 41 James Alexander Dart and his rocking band
8.00-8.20pm Damon Thomas and his beautiful blues-came in second last month!
8.30-9.00pm Liam Dunn and his band www.stereoinfluence.com
Moroccan Stage-Spoken Word and Acoustic
Compered by the brains behind Worcester Literary Festival and a poet in her own right...the multi talented Lisa Ventura.
3.00-3.30pm Rebecca Cant-Decembers winner and an unbeleivable voice. TBC
3.30-3.45pm Lisa Ventura
3.45-4.00pm Andrew Owens
4.00-4.15pm Keith Hyatt-bringing some acoustic flamenco guitar and poetry
4.15-4.30pm Sarah Snell Pym
4.30-4.45pm Mark Chatterley
4.45-5.00pm Julie Jones and her comedy from the freezer
5.00-5.15pm Tony Judge-satirical short stories.
5.15-5.30pm Jeremy Toombs TBC
5.30-5.45pm Lyn Cinderry TBC
5.45-6.00pm James Bunting-Amazing Bristol Poet
6.00-6.15pm Chloe Lees-Grown up stories
6.15-6.30pm John Bassetts Dark Tales TBC
6.30-6.45pm Guy Williams and his broken foot!
6.45-7.00pm Suz Winspear
7.00-7.15pm Dan Holloway-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXXdIqA8LsI
7.15-7.30pm Joel Denno
7.30-7.45pm Closing from Lisa Ventura
7.45-8.00pm TBC
Joel Denno
Tony Judge-satirical short stories and a regular reader at Parole Parlate (Worcester) and on Radio Wildfire.
Keith Hyatt-bringing some acoustic flamenco feel guitar and poetry all the way from Swindon. TBC
April 2012 Bookings
Paul Johnson and his guitar will be treating us all again.
Emmet Brown-Whitey Shakespliff Oldham rapping and highly recommended
The Bonfire of the insanities Sunday Chill was reviewed by the Citizen so don't listen to us blowing our own trumpet - see what they have to think...http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/nailed-arts-festival/story-13787726-detail/story.html
North Toraja (or Toraja Utara) is a regency (kabupaten) of South Sulawesi Province of Indonesia, and the home of the Toraja ethnic group. The local government seat is in Rantepao which is also the center of Toraja culture. Formerly this regency was part of Tana Toraja Regency.
The Tana Toraja boundary was determined by the Dutch East Indies government in 1909. In 1926, Tana Toraja was under the administration of Bugis state, Luwu. The regentschap (or regency) status was given on October 8, 1946, the last regency given by the Dutch. Since 1984, Tana Toraja has been named as the second tourist destination after Bali by the Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia. Since then, hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors have visited this regency. In addition, numerous Western anthropologists have come to Tana Toraja to study the indigenous culture and people of Toraja.
GEOGRAPHY
Tana Toraja is located on the Sulawesi island, 300 km north of Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi. Its geographical location is between latitude of 2°-3° South and longitude 119°-120° East (center: 3°S 120°ECoordinates: 3°S 120°E). The area of the new North Toraja Regency is 1,151.47 km², about 2.5% of the total area of South Sulawesi province. The topography of Tana Toraja is mountainous; its minimum elevation is 150 m, while the maximum is 3,083 above the sea level.
Tana Toraja Regency (Indonesian for Torajaland or Land of the Toraja, abbreviated Tator) is a regency (kabupaten) of South Sulawesi Province of Indonesia, and home to the Toraja ethnic group. The local government seat is in Makale, while the center of Toraja culture is in Rantepao. But now, Tana Toraja has been divided to two regencies that consist of Tana Toraja with its capital at Makale and North toraja with its capital at Rantepao.
The Tana Toraja boundary was determined by the Dutch East Indies government in 1909. In 1926, Tana Toraja was under the administration of Bugis state, Luwu. The regentschap (or regency) status was given on 8 October 1946, the last regency given by the Dutch. Since 1984, Tana Toraja has been named as the second tourist destination after Bali by the Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia. Since then, hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors have visited this regency. In addition, numerous Western anthropologists have come to Tana Toraja to study the indigenous culture and people of Toraja.
GEOGRAPHY
Tana Toraja is centrally placed in the island of Sulawesi, 300 km north of Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi. It lies between latitude of 2°-3° South and longitude 119°-120° East (center: 3°S 120°ECoordinates: 3°S 120°E). The total area (since the separation of the new regency of North Toraja) is 2,054.30 km², about 4.4% of the total area of South Sulawesi province. The topography of Tana Toraja is mountainous; its minimum elevation is 150 m, while the maximum is 3,083 above the sea level.
ADMINISTRATION
Tana Toraja Regency in 2010 comprised nineteen administrative Districts (Kecamatan), tabulated below with their 2010 Census population.
The Torajans 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").[1] Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government has recognised this animistic belief as Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the Ancestors").
The word Toraja comes from the 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 colourful 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 development 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 colonisation and Christianisation, 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 recognised 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 recognised religions: Islam, Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism), Hinduism, or Buddhism. The Torajan religious belief (aluk) was not legally recognised, 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 legalised 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 AFFILATION
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.
Architecture in the style of a tongkonan is still very common. Various administration buildings were built in this style in recent years, e.g. the Kecamatan building in Rantepao.
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 symbolise some virtue. For example, water plants and animals, such as crabs, tadpoles and water weeds, are commonly found to symbolise 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. Torajan wood carvings are composed of numerous square panels, each of which can represent various things, for example buffaloes as a wish of wealth for the family; a knot and a box, symbolizing the hope that all of the family's offspring will be happy and live in harmony; aquatic animals, indicating the need for fast and hard work, just like moving on the surface of water.
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's 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.
DANNCE 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.
COGENDER VIEWS
Among the Saʼadan (eastern Toraja) in the island of Sulawesi (Celebes), Indonesia, there are homosexual male toburake tambolang shamans; although among their neighbors the Mamasa (western Toraja) there are instead only heterosexual female toburake shamanesses.
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 characterised 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 commercialised. 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
The Stonington Free Library 1887-1996
By Taliaferro Boatwright
Adapted from the Stonington Historical Society's
Historical Footnotes by Jack Hinshaw, 1996
One dime, given by a guest to an ardent proponent of literature, marked the beginning of the Stonington Free Library.
As Mrs. Martha Todd Hill recounts in her charming Story of the Stonington Free Library, published in 1891, the fortunes of the Ladies Book Club were at a low ebb in 1887. Over the years the club had acquired a small collection of books, which it made available to subscribers at a modest fee. The collection was housed in a dismantled store, and was open to the public only on Saturday afternoons and evenings. Perhaps fifty people availed themselves of its services, which were scarcely appealing: the books were tattered and dusty, and none was new.
"One Sunday evening in May, 1887," according to Mrs. Hill, "a lady spoke of a new plan just undertaken in New Haven [to raise money for a local charity]. Turning to another guest, she requested him to give her ten cents. That dime began the Free Library. The guest returned the compliment by asking her and the lady of the house to do the same. Each lady asked two others, and the dimes came in, though it was never obligatory to entice two other victims." In a sense, the Free Library sprang from a sort of Pyramid Club, a chain letter scheme.
Mrs. Hill continues: "As soon as five dollars were collected, they were expended on fresh, attractive books which were conspicuously displayed in a private parlor. Every visitor, attracted by the sight of Little Lord Fauntleroy in his first glory, would ask 'Are these new books for the Book Club?' 'No, for the Free Library, whenever there is one."'
In this way, 330 dimes, representing as many givers, were gathered, most from donors who did not live in Stonington. With the $33 thus collected, thirty-eight books were bought. (In those days new books could be obtained for less than a dollar each). More significantly, perhaps, a committee was formed "to see if a Free Library [was] practicable."
The new library committee discharged its duties conscientiously. It asked itself whether people would use a Free Library, even though loan of books would be "gratis;" whether the ordinary citizens of the Borough could be trusted to care for illustrated books on loan; and what the rights of the owners of the books that were then the stock of the Free Library (that is, the members of the book club) would be. All these questions were resolved satisfactorily and the process of raising money in earnest was begun. Among other means adopted was the sale of the new game, Halma, which was popular in the 1890s.
With all signs favorable, the first meeting of the Stonington Free Library Association, as it came to be called, was held early in September, 1887, and the decision was made to establish a Free Library. The "Aunt Mary Howe House," on the corner of Main and Church Streets, was rented for $100 a year as quarters. Stiles T. Stanton was elected President, but on his death five months later, was succeeded by the vice-president, Reverend Albert Gallatin Palmer. The other officers were Rev. Charles J. Hill, secretary and James H. Weeks, treasurer. Annie J. Wilkinson was named librarian. In July, 1888 they filed a formal certificate of organization stating that "The Name of this organization shall be 'The Stonington Free Library Association"' and its object "is to be the promotion of literary interests in the Town of Stonington by sustaining a Free Library Reading Room and Museum.
By 1891 the Stonington Free Library had 2,830 bound volumes and 520 paperbacks on its shelves. Almost a thousand library cards had been issued, and over 700 were in active use. The circulation was reported as 12,000 volumes a year, a very respectable figure for a community of 2,500 souls.
The Howe house was an adequate home for the Free Library at first, but it proved to be small for the needs that developed. Before many years had passed, the people of Stonington showed with their support of the library that a new and larger building was needed to house the books and provide an adequate public reading room.
Two public-spirited men with Stonington roots, Samuel D. Babcock of New York and Erskine M. Phelps of Chicago, each pledged $8,000 if the residents of the town would raise $4,000. Fund raising began anew; this time the principal means was the staging of operettas with local talent, among them "Robin Hood," "HMS Pinafore" and "Bobby Shaftoe." Before long the challenge was met.
It was proposed that the library be built in Wadawanuck Park, the site until 1893 of the famous Wadawanuck Hotel, which had been razed. On September 15,1898 a meeting was held in Borough Hall to accept the property as a gift from the heirs of Samuel Denison. A provision in the deed stipulated that a building be erected on the property to be used as a circulating public library and reading room, and that one room be used by the Stonington Historical and Genealogical Society.
Messrs. Clinton and Russell of New York were hired as architects and Norcross Brothers of Worcester as contractors to construct the building. The new library was formally opened on March 25th, 1900. This handsome structure served the needs of the Borough and the surrounding area for many years. But eventually it was recognized that more space was needed, both for books and for an additional reading room. Through the generosity of Dr. Frederic C. Paffard a new section, designed by John E. Dodge of Stonington, was added on the north side of the old building and opened March 15th, 1956.
Thirty years later it was again apparent that more space was needed, and that the original part of the building needed a face lift. Mr. and Mrs. Jacques Wimpfheimer, owners of the American Velvet Company, donated $350,000 toward a new wing in memory of their son, Jocko, who died in Africa in 1987. Another $400,000, raised through donations, paid for renovations to the existing structure and to establish an endowment fund. The Stonington Garden Club gave $4,000 for new plantings, and the Village Improvement Association replaced the park benches in the square. Ken Best of the firm of Galliher and Baier in Simsbury, CT designed the wing to compliment the 19th century architecture of the original building.
The Wimpfheimer Wing, which was dedicated on July 6, 1990, added 1,000 square feet of floor space and doubled the library's shelf space. Renovations to the existing building included air conditioning and humidity control, a new circulation desk, new lighting, computer access and a large unfinished basement (now occupied by the Stonington Historical Society Library until its new building on Palmer Street is completed).
By January of 1996 the library had expanded its computer services to include reQuest, giving patrons an inquiry system to all Connecticut libraries, and offered access to the internet. For the prior fiscal year ending July 30, l995 circulation was almost 43,000 books, videos, books on tape and other materials. The same year saw six adult lectures, two poetry series and numerous children's story hours.
But, in the words of Mrs. Rose York, past president, "What's really special about this library is its atmosphere. It's small and we really try to please the public."
THE HISTORY IS USED WITH PERMISSION.
COPYRIGHT BY THE STONINGTON FREE LIBRARY
At College I got given a brief on to make a calendar for 2016, we could choose to do anything with our calendar and I chose to base my calendar on the local park 'Chelmsford Central Park'. In this collection there are photos of flowers, trees and a lake. When taking these photos I used the sun as an advantage. Before taking photos I walked around the park finding inspiration from things I could see around me, I then proceeded to take images and these photos were used on the final outcome of my calendar.
Given the opposition in Islam to the depiction of human and animal forms for religious art and architecture, it was shoking to see two huge portraits of the Imam Khomeini and Ali Khamenei, the current leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, in the courtyard of the historic Friday Mosque of Isfahan. Maybe these images are considered to belong to the secular sphere, with no connection whatsoever with religiosity despite being in a mosque.
Back when I were a nipper, I was given a book, a big book of trains from around the world, and on the cover was a Japanese Bullet Train, and I have always wanted to ride one ever since. There is one at the NRM in York, but that doesn't work, so for me, the real highlight of this trip would be riding on a real bullet train. Several times. I was so excited I was vibrating.
After the usual breakfast at the Gate Hotel, we took the Metro to Ueno then the overground line to Tokyo Station, simply re-tracing our steps of two day's before on the guided walk. Heck, we were experienced Metro travellers now, we knew stuff. And after sending the cases on via the courier, we only had either a night case of a bag of camera equipment with us to weigh us down.
And we did it will little problem and with an hour to spare, with the idea that I could snap the bullet trains to death while we waited.
At the Shinkansen platforms, we validate our pass and are let through; we had reserved seats the day before, so we could relax and wait for our train happy that we would have a seat. Which meant I could go to the end of the platforms to take shots. I could also go to the middle and all point between to snap away, Man, it were proper lush. I just knew that me deal old Dad would have loved this, waiting on the end of platforms in Tokyo, waiting for the next Bullet train to either arrive or leave.
Not only was I snapping them, but within the hour, we would be climbing on one to travel south to Kyoto.
At 11:03 we lined up where it said on the platform our carriage would stop, which it did We filed on, slumped into our armchair-like seats, all of which pointed the direction of travel. And we zoomed off, accelerating wat seemed as fast as a Formula 1 car, but this being an 18 coach train. I waited with excitement untol it was time for the train to depart; expecting something sensational, but we didn't even hear the doors swish closed; only with a wave from the guard on the platform, the train pulled away, rapidly accelerating along the platform and out into the grayness outside.
The line weaved through the massive tower blocks we had seen on the previous day, I tried to recognise the World Trade Centre, but it must have looked like any of a dozen other buildings. The suburbs slipped by, then we were in the countryside, nipping in and out of tunnels, past steep hillsides planted with green tea plants.
We stopped at various stations, picking a few more people up, but our coach was less than half full.
Sadly, outside it rained, and so Mount Fuji was hidden from view, we had even been given tickets on the left side of the train so we would be on the correct side for the view. Maybe on our way back? Who knows?
Every time a member of staff came though the carriage, they would stop at the door the other end of the compartment, then and salute; we don't get that on the train up to London back home, I thought. Not only that, they are smartly turned out with white gloves. Smart.
I was happy enough on the train, looking out the window watching the countryside slip by, changing from the urban landscape of Totyo, to the rolling hills further south and then the endless paddy fields as we neared Kyoto, where we were to get off. It was still pouring with rain, with no views of mountains or volcanoes; mores the pity.
We arrive at 14:00, and right away find somewhere to have lunch; a noodle bar on the station, which again was very good indeed as it was more noodles and tempura prawns. We order by pointing at pictures on the menu, then pay by thrusting wads of notes at the lady behind the till. She bows. We bow. We all bow.
We find the taxi rank and show him the address to the hotel, so we set off into the drizzly grey weather. and the heavy traffic, in which we crawled to the centre of town and our hotel.
We have no trouble in checking in, and our cases were waiting. Jools decides to do some washing as the wash room is one our fllor, and we had already accumilated several pounds of loose change with which to feed the machines.
With the portable wifi device that the tour company had provided us with, we were able to get online, get the news, check mails ad have the Radcliffe and Maconie show streamed; almost like being home.
So once we had made a coffee, we went out into the early evening to see what was around. What we found was a covered shopping area, several streets in fact, all lined with shops and all having neon signs flashing away. Three guitar shops, two record shops among others.
It was a modern shopping centre, along three covered roads. On one of them there was a temple, just taking up the place where you would expect a shop.
In the narrow streets beyond, we spy a shop selling creme brulee donuts, so Jools and i have one and a coffee, which is just dandy.
We walk back to the hotel under our newly purchased umbrellas, thus keeping dry. It was beginning to get dark, and the neon lights reflected off the road in a most attractive way.
Later in the evening, we decide not to go out into the pouring rain, wandering around a strange new city with little idea of where we would be going, so instead we go to the restaurant in the basement, and order pork or something which should have come with vegetables. It did, but just one mange tout, which counts as one of your five a day; right?.
We round the night off with cards in our room accompanied by cheap local beer bought from a drug store.
Back when I were a nipper, I was given a book, a big book of trains from around the world, and on the cover was a Japanese Bullet Train, and I have always wanted to ride one ever since. There is one at the NRM in York, but that doesn't work, so for me, the real highlight of this trip would be riding on a real bullet train. Several times. I was so excited I was vibrating.
After the usual breakfast at the Gate Hotel, we took the Metro to Ueno then the overground line to Tokyo Station, simply re-tracing our steps of two day's before on the guided walk. Heck, we were experienced Metro travellers now, we knew stuff. And after sending the cases on via the courier, we only had either a night case of a bag of camera equipment with us to weigh us down.
And we did it will little problem and with an hour to spare, with the idea that I could snap the bullet trains to death while we waited.
At the Shinkansen platforms, we validate our pass and are let through; we had reserved seats the day before, so we could relax and wait for our train happy that we would have a seat. Which meant I could go to the end of the platforms to take shots. I could also go to the middle and all point between to snap away, Man, it were proper lush. I just knew that me deal old Dad would have loved this, waiting on the end of platforms in Tokyo, waiting for the next Bullet train to either arrive or leave.
Not only was I snapping them, but within the hour, we would be climbing on one to travel south to Kyoto.
At 11:03 we lined up where it said on the platform our carriage would stop, which it did We filed on, slumped into our armchair-like seats, all of which pointed the direction of travel. And we zoomed off, accelerating wat seemed as fast as a Formula 1 car, but this being an 18 coach train. I waited with excitement untol it was time for the train to depart; expecting something sensational, but we didn't even hear the doors swish closed; only with a wave from the guard on the platform, the train pulled away, rapidly accelerating along the platform and out into the grayness outside.
The line weaved through the massive tower blocks we had seen on the previous day, I tried to recognise the World Trade Centre, but it must have looked like any of a dozen other buildings. The suburbs slipped by, then we were in the countryside, nipping in and out of tunnels, past steep hillsides planted with green tea plants.
We stopped at various stations, picking a few more people up, but our coach was less than half full.
Sadly, outside it rained, and so Mount Fuji was hidden from view, we had even been given tickets on the left side of the train so we would be on the correct side for the view. Maybe on our way back? Who knows?
Every time a member of staff came though the carriage, they would stop at the door the other end of the compartment, then and salute; we don't get that on the train up to London back home, I thought. Not only that, they are smartly turned out with white gloves. Smart.
I was happy enough on the train, looking out the window watching the countryside slip by, changing from the urban landscape of Totyo, to the rolling hills further south and then the endless paddy fields as we neared Kyoto, where we were to get off. It was still pouring with rain, with no views of mountains or volcanoes; mores the pity.
We arrive at 14:00, and right away find somewhere to have lunch; a noodle bar on the station, which again was very good indeed as it was more noodles and tempura prawns. We order by pointing at pictures on the menu, then pay by thrusting wads of notes at the lady behind the till. She bows. We bow. We all bow.
We find the taxi rank and show him the address to the hotel, so we set off into the drizzly grey weather. and the heavy traffic, in which we crawled to the centre of town and our hotel.
We have no trouble in checking in, and our cases were waiting. Jools decides to do some washing as the wash room is one our fllor, and we had already accumilated several pounds of loose change with which to feed the machines.
With the portable wifi device that the tour company had provided us with, we were able to get online, get the news, check mails ad have the Radcliffe and Maconie show streamed; almost like being home.
So once we had made a coffee, we went out into the early evening to see what was around. What we found was a covered shopping area, several streets in fact, all lined with shops and all having neon signs flashing away. Three guitar shops, two record shops among others.
It was a modern shopping centre, along three covered roads. On one of them there was a temple, just taking up the place where you would expect a shop.
In the narrow streets beyond, we spy a shop selling creme brulee donuts, so Jools and i have one and a coffee, which is just dandy.
We walk back to the hotel under our newly purchased umbrellas, thus keeping dry. It was beginning to get dark, and the neon lights reflected off the road in a most attractive way.
Later in the evening, we decide not to go out into the pouring rain, wandering around a strange new city with little idea of where we would be going, so instead we go to the restaurant in the basement, and order pork or something which should have come with vegetables. It did, but just one mange tout, which counts as one of your five a day; right?.
We round the night off with cards in our room accompanied by cheap local beer bought from a drug store.
The Rivergate shopping centre was officially opened in 1975, construction having started several years before hand. The decision to demolish to the towns bridge and make the streets pedestrians only, garnered a few protests, but was given the go ahead anyway. The town centre was completely changed, with all of the buildings at Bridgegate being demolished as were the buildings on the opposite side of the river. To accommodate for the lack of a main road across the river a new bridge was built called the northern approach road or ‘Marress’ bridge, this photograph was taken from the top of Irvine’s high rise flats.
For more information on the Yesterd@ys project, please visit Our Website, or email us at NAHeritage@North-Ayrshire.gov.uk
DISCLAIMER
All archival images on this website have been made available by The North Ayrshire Council in good faith for reference and/or educational purposes only and without intent to breach any proprietary rights which may subsist in the work. Images may not be printed, copied, distributed, published or used for any commercial purposes without the prior written consent of the individual or body which holds such rights. Should any alleged breach of proprietary rights be brought to the attention of The North Ayrshire Council, relevant material will be removed from the website with immediate effect.
The North Ayrshire Council is not responsible for the content, reliability or availability of external websites and cannot be held liable for any loss or damage to the user, of whatever kind, arising either directly or indirectly from use of same. Listing should not be taken as an endorsement of any kind and in particular, of views expressed within any such site.
OK, wow, something truly special - probably my top pick for Hot Toys figure in 2018. Believe you me, it was a tough choice given the competition but what clinched it for me was the fact I only bought one figure this year.
Like I said, it was a very hard choice for me to make in choosing a winner of this prestigious award.
So I finally cracked it open and did a thorough evaluation like I usually do, and gathered my thoughts in written word, right here, to share with the world.
So this figure is of course Wonder Woman, specifically the one released for the Justice League line, and is the Deluxe version which comes with a pimp cloak and a scale Mother Box. While very pretty and ornate, I honesty have no idea how one would incorporate the thing into their display, and I don't have any idea as to why it's so damn heavy either.
By now, if you actually cared, I'm sure you've read all the horrible nasty things people have said on line about how her sculpt wasn't as accurate as the Training Armour version, and that this is the worst thing since sliced bread because of this fact. My response is as follows:
FUCK OFF. SERIOUSLY.
Now, don't get me wrong. This sculpt doesn't look perfectly like Gal Gadot, or even the Training Armour version. But the painstaking detail into which people went show how "bad" the thing was, and lets not forget Nosegate where people showed the nose on this sculpt was longer than the Training Armour version. All-in-all, it was witch hunt, plain and simple.
Is this the greatest Hot Toys ever made? Dear Lord no, not even close, but it doesn't fail because of the way the sculpt looks. The final release resembled the prototype very, very closely, which is what I was expecting. I honestly don't get why people thought the final product would look like Gadot, given the fact the prototype didn't look like her in the first place.
OK, enough with the rant here. Lets move on.
So Wonder Woman comes with her shield, sword, leader harness thing, two sets of bracers (normal and glowing), a single armlet, several Lasso of Truths (one coiled, two unraveled), a stand, and a variety of hands. She's also rocking a seamless body, which is somewhat of a new thing for me.
If you're unfamiliar with the concept, a seamless body is pretty much a metal skeleton with a rubber suit around it. Naturally, something like this means that articulation will be limited. Now, I'm not exactly a posing genius, but even I found that the limits imposed were a bit severe. You can't really raise her arm about her shoulders, and don't even THINK about doing her trademark arms crossed pose, which really makes the glowing bracers kind of pointless.
If you read the manual, pretty much anything fun you want to do will damage the figure, so you're pretty much limited to museum poses, or at most, re-enacting the Coincedance video.
On the plus side, the body aesthetically has improve dramatically since the days of Ada Wong from RE5, with excellent muscle definition, including some veins on her forearms. I still feel her bust line is too low, something that seems to be a problem with most of the Hot Toys female releases, though in this case I think it's also because they recycled the body from the first Wonder Woman release.
Joints in this figure are tight, probably because it's new and also because the rubber suit is providing some really strong resistance to movement.
Other than the sword and the shield, the other accessories included (except the cloak, I guess) are pretty much nice to have, but ultimately don't really add a whole lot to the figure due to the limited articulation. The various dynamic lassos can't really be pose into anything exciting, same with the bullet effects, and of course the Mother Box.
Speaking of the Mother Box, that thing is pretty, but is pretty much a paper weight. Damn heavy too.
I do like the cloak. It adds some nice character to the figure, and is very well made. It also lets me recreate an iconic look from a movie I have yet to see.
So articulation aside, what killed this figure for me was the piss poor design of attaching the shield to her back. Two little plastic hook things? Bad, bad, bad, bad idea, Hot Toys.
Try a little harder next time.
So that is my mini review of Wonder Woman. I think she looks great, but in terms of being an action figure is severely limited due to her body. Still, Wonder Woman has great shelf presence, especially since this version doesn't look like a lifeless blowup doll.
North Toraja (or Toraja Utara) is a regency (kabupaten) of South Sulawesi Province of Indonesia, and the home of the Toraja ethnic group. The local government seat is in Rantepao which is also the center of Toraja culture. Formerly this regency was part of Tana Toraja Regency.
The Tana Toraja boundary was determined by the Dutch East Indies government in 1909. In 1926, Tana Toraja was under the administration of Bugis state, Luwu. The regentschap (or regency) status was given on October 8, 1946, the last regency given by the Dutch. Since 1984, Tana Toraja has been named as the second tourist destination after Bali by the Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia. Since then, hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors have visited this regency. In addition, numerous Western anthropologists have come to Tana Toraja to study the indigenous culture and people of Toraja.
GEOGRAPHY
Tana Toraja is located on the Sulawesi island, 300 km north of Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi. Its geographical location is between latitude of 2°-3° South and longitude 119°-120° East (center: 3°S 120°ECoordinates: 3°S 120°E). The area of the new North Toraja Regency is 1,151.47 km², about 2.5% of the total area of South Sulawesi province. The topography of Tana Toraja is mountainous; its minimum elevation is 150 m, while the maximum is 3,083 above the sea level.
Tana Toraja Regency (Indonesian for Torajaland or Land of the Toraja, abbreviated Tator) is a regency (kabupaten) of South Sulawesi Province of Indonesia, and home to the Toraja ethnic group. The local government seat is in Makale, while the center of Toraja culture is in Rantepao. But now, Tana Toraja has been divided to two regencies that consist of Tana Toraja with its capital at Makale and North toraja with its capital at Rantepao.
The Tana Toraja boundary was determined by the Dutch East Indies government in 1909. In 1926, Tana Toraja was under the administration of Bugis state, Luwu. The regentschap (or regency) status was given on 8 October 1946, the last regency given by the Dutch. Since 1984, Tana Toraja has been named as the second tourist destination after Bali by the Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia. Since then, hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors have visited this regency. In addition, numerous Western anthropologists have come to Tana Toraja to study the indigenous culture and people of Toraja.
GEOGRAPHY
Tana Toraja is centrally placed in the island of Sulawesi, 300 km north of Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi. It lies between latitude of 2°-3° South and longitude 119°-120° East (center: 3°S 120°ECoordinates: 3°S 120°E). The total area (since the separation of the new regency of North Toraja) is 2,054.30 km², about 4.4% of the total area of South Sulawesi province. The topography of Tana Toraja is mountainous; its minimum elevation is 150 m, while the maximum is 3,083 above the sea level.
ADMINISTRATION
Tana Toraja Regency in 2010 comprised nineteen administrative Districts (Kecamatan), tabulated below with their 2010 Census population.
The Torajans 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").[1] Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government has recognised this animistic belief as Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the Ancestors").
The word Toraja comes from the 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 colourful 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 development 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 colonisation and Christianisation, 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 recognised 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 recognised religions: Islam, Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism), Hinduism, or Buddhism. The Torajan religious belief (aluk) was not legally recognised, 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 legalised 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 AFFILATION
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.
Architecture in the style of a tongkonan is still very common. Various administration buildings were built in this style in recent years, e.g. the Kecamatan building in Rantepao.
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 symbolise some virtue. For example, water plants and animals, such as crabs, tadpoles and water weeds, are commonly found to symbolise 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. Torajan wood carvings are composed of numerous square panels, each of which can represent various things, for example buffaloes as a wish of wealth for the family; a knot and a box, symbolizing the hope that all of the family's offspring will be happy and live in harmony; aquatic animals, indicating the need for fast and hard work, just like moving on the surface of water.
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's 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.
DANNCE 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.
COGENDER VIEWS
Among the Saʼadan (eastern Toraja) in the island of Sulawesi (Celebes), Indonesia, there are homosexual male toburake tambolang shamans; although among their neighbors the Mamasa (western Toraja) there are instead only heterosexual female toburake shamanesses.
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 characterised 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 commercialised. 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
YORK, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 19: during the BUCS Men’s Northern Tier 6 Group C match between York St John University 8ths and Leeds Trinity University 4ths at Haxby Road on October 19th 2022 in North Yorkshire, United Kingdom. (Photo by Matthew Appleby)
The State of Iowa takes time to honor officers who have given their lives in the line of duty. At a ceremony today on the Capitol Complex, four officers were officially added to the Peace Officers’ Memorial.
This year, there are four peace officers who will be formally honored:
Des Moines Police Department, Officer Susan Louise Farrell, E.O.W. 03-26-2016
Officer Farrell was killed in a head-on collision, on I-80 west of Des Moines, while on duty on March 26, 2016.
Des Moines Police Department, Officer Carlos Bernabe Puente-Morales, E.O.W. 03-26-2016
Officer Puente-Morales was killed in a head-on collision, on I-80 west of Des Moines, while on duty on March 26, 2016.
Ames Police Department, Sergeant Howard James Snider, E.O.W. 06-17-2012
Sergeant Snider drown while in a lake, off duty on June 17, 2012, due to the setting of a pulmonary embolism from an injury he sustained while on duty.
Iowa Parole Board, Field Agent Albert Paul, E.O.W. 02-05-1938
Agent Paul was killed in a single-vehicle crash while on duty, transporting a paroled fugitive from back California to Iowa on February 5, 1938.
---
Press L to view this as it should.
---
*All Rights Reserved
All works are protected by copyright, and are not to used for any purpose unless direct prior written consent has been given by me.
johnma@johnma.com.au
By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.
[1 Corinthians 3:10-15 NIV]
5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:
1. Like it or not, we are ALL sinners: As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Romans 3:10-12 NLT)
2. The punishment for sin is death: When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. (Romans 5:12 NLT)
3. Jesus is our only hope: But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:8 NLT) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NLT)
4. SALVATION is by GRACE through FAITH in JESUS: God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:8-10 NLT)
5. Accept Jesus and receive eternal life: If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9 NLT) But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12 NLT) And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life. (1 John 5:11-12 NLT)
Read the Bible for yourself. Allow the Lord to speak to you through his Word. YOUR ETERNITY IS AT STAKE!
Resting safely in the engine shed in Beamish Museum is 1931-built 0-4-0WT "Glyder", built by Andrew Barclay & Son and given works no.1994.
This 2ft(610mm) gauge shunter was originally built for Durham County Water Board to be used on the construction of their Burnhope Reservoir in Weardale, where it was given the uninspiring name "Grey". It was sold on in 1938 to Penrhyn Slate Mine near Bethesda in North Wales, where it was given it's current name.
The locomotive was one of a number of narrow gauge engines exported to the USA in 1965 to be used in a museum there. The project never really came to fruition and, in 2012, some of these engines were repatriated to the UK.
"Glyder" is now in private ownership but is currently stored at Beamish Museum pending decisions as to her eventual restoration.
Copyright © 2012 Terry Pinnegar Photography. All Rights Reserved. THIS IMAGE IS NOT TO BE USED WITHOUT MY EXPRESS PERMISSION!
Dull and grey out today, thank goodness we had some sun last weekend.
Growing in the pavement by a wall.
Thank you for your favourites. :O)
Since about 1997 I have wanted to go inside the Tate Gallery at St. Ives. There used to be an old exhibition poster blue-tacked to the wall in the portacabin where I studied A-Level Art, from some exhibition that had been to Tate St. Ives. I remember my Art Tutor telling me that the light was so much better down on the coast and that was why a lot of Artists flocked down here.
I made it here once about 5 years ago, arriving bang on 5 o'clock- closing time :(
So, Olivier and I decided to make our way there and see what was on. We had a great day! It took quite a while to find the gallery from the harbour, wandering (up-hill) randomly for a while but we got there in the end.
I shot this from from the Mezzanine above where the installation by Martin Creed is.
The artwork is called 'Half the air in the space given' Creed calculates the volume of the space and fills half of it with balloons to show this space in a physical form. Visitors are then invited to engage in this space, the balloons evoking a sense of celebration and childhood, literally changing our behaviour and mood.
Our hair was on end with all the static electricity, it smelled like balloons and you could bury your way through it all.....it was ace :)
North Toraja (or Toraja Utara) is a regency (kabupaten) of South Sulawesi Province of Indonesia, and the home of the Toraja ethnic group. The local government seat is in Rantepao which is also the center of Toraja culture. Formerly this regency was part of Tana Toraja Regency.
The Tana Toraja boundary was determined by the Dutch East Indies government in 1909. In 1926, Tana Toraja was under the administration of Bugis state, Luwu. The regentschap (or regency) status was given on October 8, 1946, the last regency given by the Dutch. Since 1984, Tana Toraja has been named as the second tourist destination after Bali by the Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia. Since then, hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors have visited this regency. In addition, numerous Western anthropologists have come to Tana Toraja to study the indigenous culture and people of Toraja.
GEOGRAPHY
Tana Toraja is located on the Sulawesi island, 300 km north of Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi. Its geographical location is between latitude of 2°-3° South and longitude 119°-120° East (center: 3°S 120°ECoordinates: 3°S 120°E). The area of the new North Toraja Regency is 1,151.47 km², about 2.5% of the total area of South Sulawesi province. The topography of Tana Toraja is mountainous; its minimum elevation is 150 m, while the maximum is 3,083 above the sea level.
Tana Toraja Regency (Indonesian for Torajaland or Land of the Toraja, abbreviated Tator) is a regency (kabupaten) of South Sulawesi Province of Indonesia, and home to the Toraja ethnic group. The local government seat is in Makale, while the center of Toraja culture is in Rantepao. But now, Tana Toraja has been divided to two regencies that consist of Tana Toraja with its capital at Makale and North toraja with its capital at Rantepao.
The Tana Toraja boundary was determined by the Dutch East Indies government in 1909. In 1926, Tana Toraja was under the administration of Bugis state, Luwu. The regentschap (or regency) status was given on 8 October 1946, the last regency given by the Dutch. Since 1984, Tana Toraja has been named as the second tourist destination after Bali by the Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia. Since then, hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors have visited this regency. In addition, numerous Western anthropologists have come to Tana Toraja to study the indigenous culture and people of Toraja.
GEOGRAPHY
Tana Toraja is centrally placed in the island of Sulawesi, 300 km north of Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi. It lies between latitude of 2°-3° South and longitude 119°-120° East (center: 3°S 120°ECoordinates: 3°S 120°E). The total area (since the separation of the new regency of North Toraja) is 2,054.30 km², about 4.4% of the total area of South Sulawesi province. The topography of Tana Toraja is mountainous; its minimum elevation is 150 m, while the maximum is 3,083 above the sea level.
ADMINISTRATION
Tana Toraja Regency in 2010 comprised nineteen administrative Districts (Kecamatan), tabulated below with their 2010 Census population.
The Torajans 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").[1] Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government has recognised this animistic belief as Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the Ancestors").
The word Toraja comes from the 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 colourful 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 development 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 colonisation and Christianisation, 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 recognised 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 recognised religions: Islam, Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism), Hinduism, or Buddhism. The Torajan religious belief (aluk) was not legally recognised, 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 legalised 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 AFFILATION
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.
Architecture in the style of a tongkonan is still very common. Various administration buildings were built in this style in recent years, e.g. the Kecamatan building in Rantepao.
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 symbolise some virtue. For example, water plants and animals, such as crabs, tadpoles and water weeds, are commonly found to symbolise 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. Torajan wood carvings are composed of numerous square panels, each of which can represent various things, for example buffaloes as a wish of wealth for the family; a knot and a box, symbolizing the hope that all of the family's offspring will be happy and live in harmony; aquatic animals, indicating the need for fast and hard work, just like moving on the surface of water.
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's 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.
DANNCE 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.
COGENDER VIEWS
Among the Saʼadan (eastern Toraja) in the island of Sulawesi (Celebes), Indonesia, there are homosexual male toburake tambolang shamans; although among their neighbors the Mamasa (western Toraja) there are instead only heterosexual female toburake shamanesses.
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 characterised 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 commercialised. 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
Deaths given this diagnosis are all due to HIV infection that has progressed to AIDS.
In 2002 nearly 80% of the 2.6 million deaths from AIDS occured in sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease, usually untreated, caused more than 6000 deaths every day and accounted for almost one in five of all deaths and half of the deaths of adults aged 15 to 59 years.
AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which slowly destroys the body's defences against diseases (the immune system). When this has happened you have AIDS and certain infections and certain cancers can easily develop and easily be fatal.
AIDS is spread sexually, in semen and other genital secretions, and the person's blood is also infectious. People are infectious any time after the initial infection with HIV, long before AIDS occurs, which takes on average 10 years.
In 2002 HIV/AIDS caused 4.0% of deaths in children under 15 years, 14.1% of deaths in adults aged 15 to 59 years and 9.6% of all deaths in very poor territories with low life expectancy.
HIV/AIDS caused 5.1% of all deaths worldwide in 2002 or 469 deaths per million people. This does not include deaths due to tuberculosis in people who have HIV/AIDS.
2e Kaate Mulders - Korte Cross
For best view: Press L
© Jef Kusters - credit MUST be given at all times
Given to members of a chorus at Hammar Glassworks. Roland Karlsson was the choir leader. Only 16 bottles were made.
Whyalla. Population 21,200.
Hummock Hill was sighted and named by Matthew Flinders in 1802 and soon after given French names by Captain Baudin. The first pastoral runs were taken out here in the 1850s as it had the Middle Back ranges, coastal access and Port Augusta not too far distant. One of the early pastoralists was James Patterson who took out the Iron Knob leasehold of over 160 square miles in 1854 near Iron Knob. To the north and west of his leasehold was that of James Loudon who took out Caroona station in 1862. Other leaseholds in the region of Whyalla were Point Lowly, Pandurra and Middleback. In the early 1870s Loudon sold Caroona to Sir Samuel Davenport and Sir John Morphett and it was Davenport, with his interest in minerals and mining, who sent the first ore samples to England in 1878 for analysis. This resulted in a mining lease taken out in 1880 by Ernest Siekman. The lease lapsed as he did not pay the annual rental. BHP took out nine mining leases in 1896 and the future of iron Knob and the future Whyalla began. BHP began taking iron ore for smelting to Port Augusta in 1899 which took bullock drays two days. The Hundred of Randell which covered this area was declared in 1895 as interest in the ore deposits increased.
In 1896 the government released land fronting Spencers Gulf for lease. One of the first to take up land where Whyalla stands was Humphrey Cowled who leased 30,000 acres on the gulf which he called Nonowie. The town of Hummock Hill emerged in 1900 after BHP developed their ore leases. The ore was used for flux in the Port Pirie smelter and it was shipped across Spencers Gulf. Most of the early settler families at Hummock Hill also came by ship across the gulf from Port Pirie. These families remained the backbone of the Whyalla population until World War Two. In 1900 BHP proposed to the government of SA to enact a bill that would allow them to build a tramway from Iron Knob to Hummock Hill on the coast with a permanent leasehold of the route. Port Augusta Council opposed this as they wanted the tramway built to Port Augusta and its already existing port. There was some logic in this opposition as a tramway to Port Augusta would be 46 miles in length whereas the tramway to Hummock Hill was about 35 miles, not a significantly shorter distance. The government enacted legislation for a BHP tramway to Hummock Hill in 1901 and BHP had developed a small jetty and port by 1903. At the same time the town of Hummock Hill emerged partly on BHP leasehold land. By 1905 the settlement had its first school, a general store and a tin Institute in which the school was conducted. Church services were also held in the hall. In 1903 the community was pleased when Mr Delprat, the general manager of the Broken Hill mine visited Hummock Hill and Iron Knob. The first hotel opened in 1905 on the site that later became the Whyalla Hotel 20 or so years later. The beer was shipped to the hotel from Port Pirie. The isolation of Hummock Hill was reduced when a telephone service began in 1911. Gradually stone houses replaced early tin and timber houses and the town took shape. The government officially surveyed and changed the name of the town to Whyalla in 1914 which means “sound of the sea” in a local Aboriginal language. The new solid Institute was opened in 1920 by Mr Delprat the BHP manager in Broken Hill. At the time Whyalla had a population of around 1,000 people with sporting clubs, RSL, banks, and commercial enterprises. Water was shipped from Port Pirie when necessary. BHP established a dairy to provide milk for the residents and a small desalination plant was built to provide additional fresh water. The impressive red ironstone buildings, often in the Art Deco style were erected in the late 1930s or early 1940s as the city’s industrial base expanded to steel making and ship building. The iron stone Whyalla Hotel opened in 1933. It was enlarged in 1940. This was a company town run by BHP with the exception of the Post Office, the School and the Police Station run by the government and the commercial enterprises of the town. BHP was a paternalistic employer and during the Depression of the 1930s as work slowed BHP found other jobs for married male employees such as re grading the tramway from Iron Knob etc.
During World War One Mr Delprat had suggested a steel furnace and steel works in Whyalla but this did not happen. The steel industry in Australia began with a small furnace and plant at Lithgow in the Blue Mountains in 1901. This plant was superseded by the bigger steel works in Newcastle in 1915 and Whyalla jetty was then expanded to ship iron ore direct to Newcastle. The third steel plant in Australia was established at Port Kembla (Wollongong) in 1928 and Iron Knob ore was also shipped there. With the rise of Hitler and Third Reich in Europe in 1933 and the ominous threat of world war Australia began to be concerned about its future as it was clear we were no longer isolated from the rest of the world. In 1937 the SA government passed legislation for the Morgan to Whyalla Murray River water pipeline to ensure water reliability for Whyalla and this was an essential for the first production of steel by BHP. The 1937 act set aside 1,000 acres for BHP to establish the plant and adjacent harbour. Progress was not hasty and the furnace and harbour began in 1939. After the outbreak of World War Two work progressed quickly. The first steel was produced in 1941 and called pig iron. Port Kembla also produced pig iron or steel and its export to Japan in 1938 led to the Attorney General Robert Menzies being called Pig Iron Bob by striking wharf unionists. The union slogan at the time was “No scrap for the Jap.” At that time Japan was fighting the Sino-Japanese War and needed more steel. The industrial dispute at Port Kembla ended in January 1939 when the waterside workers loaded the ships at Port Kembla. In 1940 the Royal Australia Navy asked BHP if they could build ships in Whyalla and this became urgent with the war and work began in 1940 on the hulls of several ships before the steel blast furnace was completed. The town grew rapidly with an influx of new workers and the construction of the hospital, an abattoirs, the Spencer Hotel, and the establishment of a Whyalla newspaper in 1941/42. During the War the population rose from 1,350 in 1937 to 7,900 in 1944. During most of World War Two BHP employed around 2,500 men and women with a peak of 2,750 employees in 1941. During the War BHP also established an ammunitions annex to produce shells for war arms. In a couple of years Whyalla produced 748,000 shell cases. The Combined Unions Council negotiated with BHP for workers’ wages and conditions. The newly employed women to offset the war time labour shortage were employed in the war effort in the shell annex, the tool room and in ship building. The women received 90% of the men’s wages for the same job.
The first ship was launched in 1941 and named the HMAS Whyalla (650 tonnes) which is now part of the Information Centre and Maritime Museum. It was one of four corvettes made in Whyalla for the Royal Australia Navy and they mainly worked as minesweepers and surveillance. During and after World War Two Whyalla built 36 ships for the Australian Navy, four for Indian navy and 20 for the British Admiralty. After the War most of the ships built in Whyalla shipyards were mainly cargo and iron ore carriers. A total of 63 ships, one oil rig and two barges were built in Whyalla by 1978 when shipbuilding was closed down. Most of the corvettes manufactured in Whyalla had South Australian town names- Whyalla, Gawler and Pirie. Whyalla also built the Kalgoorlie corvette for the Royal Navy. Other SA named corvettes built interstate were the Kapunda, the Glenelg and the Wallaroo. After the war BHP built commercial ships and eventually in 1958 they decided to build an integrated steel works in Whyalla (completed 1965) to process the ore into steel. Railway lines and ships were among the steel products produced.
As a shipbuilding site and producer of ammunition shells Whyalla needed special consideration and defence during World War Two. Defence installations were erected on Hummock Hill during the Second World War (1942) as Whyalla was a potential Japanese bombing target. Four anti-aircraft guns were on the ready at Hummock Hill. Other defence installations were built south of Cowell at Port Gibbon to forewarn of a Japanese attack. Complacency about war threats was overturned when German shipping mines were discovered in Spencers Gulf in 1940 designed to impede BHP ore carriers to Newcastle and Wollongong. Across the Gulf Port Pirie produced half of Britain’s lead so it too needed special protection. A survey recommended special defences for both Iron Triangle cities but only Whyalla got special protection. As the threat of Japan increased anti-aircraft guns were sent to Hummock Hill and arrived on 4 February 1942. Ten days later (14 th February) Singapore fell to the Japanese and on 19th February 1942 Darwin was bombed and partially destroyed by the Japanese. The hummock Hill anti-aircraft guns were operational by 23rd March. One Royal Navy ship guarded the entrance to Whyalla for most of the War until 1944. Search lights were installed at Hummock Hill late in 1942. But no threat emerged during the War. Air raid practices were conducted by BHP from time to time warning people to take cover when the BHP siren sounded. Despite the practices and preparations no raid occurred but the need for precaution was not unfounded. Three of BHP’s merchant ships were sunk off the coast of NSW on their way to or from Whyalla with a total loss of 85 lives. By early 1944 Australia’s home defences were known to be out of danger but gunners at Whyalla had been withdrawn in August 1943 and their tasks taken over by civilian defence.
By 1943 Whyalla had a population of 5,000 people and people began to query the lack of local government as the city was run by BHP. Local government was instituted in 1944 with three elected and three BHP appointed councillors. 1944 was also the year the Morgan to Whyalla water pipeline was completed. In 1960 Whyalla became a city as it had around 14,000 residents. The Commission system of local government was ended in 1970 when locals could finally elect all councillors to their city. By 1976 Whyalla had 33,000 residents, the largest city outside of Adelaide but with the loss of shipbuilding in 1978 the city’s population declined to about 20,000. BHP sold their Whyalla works to OneSteel in 2000 which changed its name to Arrium. Sanjeev Gupta bought the insolvent Arrium steelworks in 2017 and has revitalised it albeit with recent difficulties. The Whyalla steel works are critical to the whole of Australia as steel is only made at Whyalla and Port Kembla. Whyalla is the only plant to make steel rail for all sorts of uses not just railways. In late 2024 Whyalla steel works employed 4,800 people directly and countless more indirectly in other firms. (Port Kembla employs around 3,000 people.) Perhaps the future of the city will be revitalised even more if the hydrogen hub proceeds. Whether that happens or not billions of dollars of investment are needed to move Whyalla steel works away from coal fired furnaces to gas or hydrogen fired furnaces. On the way to Hummock Hill lookout in Gay St. we pass the Whyalla Institute with a classical façade with the date as 1920. This was also the site of the first timber Institute opened in February 1905. The first Whyalla School opened in this Institute in April 1905.The current port of Whyalla exports iron ore and steel mainly. Port Bonython 16 kms north of Whyalla mainly exports crude oil and liquid gas from South Australia’s Cooper basin.
At the end of World War II, the victorious Allies captured both German scientists and research papers in aerodynamics which had given the Germans a slight edge in technology during the war. Among this was research into swept wings, which promised better handling at high speeds, a feature used successfully in the Messerschmitt Me 262. All the combatant nations had been developing jet fighters at the end of the war, and the Soviet Union was no different: like the Western Allies, it found the swept wing concept to be a perfect solution to add speed without sacrificing stability; unlike the West, the Soviets could not take advantage of it due to a lack of adequate jet engines. Soviet metallurgy was simply not up to the task, and experimental jet fighters were severely underpowered.
Engine designer Vladimir Klimov, however, came up with a novel idea: he asked the British in 1946 if they could provide a few examples of their latest engine. To the stunned surprise of Klimov, the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau, and Josef Stalin, the British complied, providing Klimov with the plans for the Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet, one of the most successful jet engines in history. Klimov quickly reverse engineered it as the VK-1, and just like that, the Soviets had the perfect engine for their planned jet interceptors.
MiG OKB already had a jet fighter in service, the MiG-9, but it was a poor performer. By modifying a MiG-9 into the I-310 prototype, with VK-1 propulsion and swept wings and tail surfaces, the resultant aircraft was superb: it was very manueverable and fast. It was placed into production as the MiG-15. This in turn was superseded by the more advanced and reliable MiG-15bis, which added airbrakes and a few minor avionics changes. Though pilots hated the cramped cockpit, which forced them to fly without heated or pressurized flight suits—a real concern in frigid Russian winters—they loved its responsiveness and speed. Though the MiG-15 was designed to intercept the B-29 Superfortress, hence its heavy cannon armament, it could hold its own in a dogfight. It rapidly replaced most propeller-driven fighters in the Soviet inventory, and was quickly supplied to Soviet client states.
The MiG-15 would get its first taste of action during the Chinese Civil War, when Russian-flown MiG-15s flew on behalf of the Communist Chinese against the Nationalists; a P-38L was shot down on 28 April 1950 for the type’s first victory. By far, however, it would be Korea where the MiG-15 would see the most action.
After starting out well, the North Korean armies were, by fall 1950, in full rout from South Korea, pursued by United Nations forces. The World War II-era North Korean People’s Air Force had been annihilated by UN aircraft, and though China intended to intervene on behalf of North Korea, it lacked trained pilots. Stalin agreed to secretly provide both MiG-15s and the pilots to fly them, operating from bases in China across the Yalu River from North Korea. The pilots, under command of Soviet top ace Ivan Kozhedub, were instructed to speak in what little Korean they knew, and never fly over territory where they might be captured. The former was rarely heeded in the heat of combat, while the short range of the MiG-15 limited pilots to flying in and around the Yalu valley in any case. This rapidly became known as “MiG Alley.” By November 1950, Russian-flown MiG-15s were in combat against American and British aircraft, and both sides fielded pilots who had already flown combat in World War II. Both sides were to find they were close to evenly matched as well: the Russians claimed the first jet-to-jet victory on 1 November, when a MiG-15 shot down a USAF F-80C; four days later, they suffered their first loss, to a US Navy F9F Panther. Most engagements were to occur between the F-86 Sabre and the MiG-15.
Once more, the two were closely matched. The MiG-15 had a better rate of climb, was superior above 33,000 feet, and had harder hitting cannon armament. The F-86’s six machine guns were often ineffective against the rugged MiG, but it was more manueverable, especially at low level, and if the machine guns did not cause as much damage, they fired at three times the rate of the MiG-15’s cannons, and usually hit what they aimed at, due to a superior radar-ranging gunsight. Both sides had to deal with instability at high speeds: if the MiG pilot got into trouble, he would climb out of danger, whereas the Sabre pilot would dive. The pilots were evenly matched, though the Russians would later admit that the Americans were better trained. Both sides overclaimed during the war, with both Soviet and American pilots claiming 12 to 1 kill ratios: the truth may never be known, though 40 Russians were awarded the title of ace during the war.
After the end of the Korean War, the MiG-15 remained in service, though it slowly began to be replaced by the MiG-17 and MiG-19. Nonetheless, MiG-15s were involved in eleven separate incidents during the Cold War, shooting down several US and British reconnaissance aircraft and an Israeli airliner. By the mid-1950s, however, the MiG-15 was beginning to show its age, and in combat with Sidewinder-equipped F-86s of Taiwan and Israeli Super Mysteres, it came off second best. Gradually, single-seat MiG-15s were retired from active service, though hundreds of two-seat MiG-15UTI “Midget” trainers remained in service; the MiG-15UTI is still flown by several air forces to this day. About 16,000 MiG-15s were produced in the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechslovakia, and a good number remain in existence today in museums and numerous flyable examples, including 43 in the United States.
With the knowledge that the MiG-15 would be a handful to fly for pilots used to propeller aircraft, some MiG-15s were modified with a cramped but serviceable rear cockpit; the student either used a periscope from the rear cockpit, or flew up front with the instructor behind him. The Midget was so successful that the Soviets did not build two-seat versions of the MiG-17 and MiG-19. Like most MiG-15UTIs on display in the United States, this is a former Polish SBLim-1, a MiG-15UTI built under license in Poland. It flew with the Polish Air Force through the 1960s to the 1990s as Bort 114, but was retired and put up for sale in 2003. It was acquired by the Southwest Florida Defense Antiquities Museum in Fort Myers, but in 2013, it was sold to the Inde Motorsports Ranch in Willcox, Arizona.
Like most of the collection at Inde Motorsports, this Midget is in great shape, painted as a Soviet Air Force MiG-15UTI in 1980s-era tactical camouflage, as Bort 625. Interestingly, this aircraft retains its guns and possibly its ejection seats as well.
Given the current wildfire situation in BC, which is expected to worsen over the weekend, the Province is asking people to not travel to parts of the Interior region until further notice.
Learn more:
GIVEN A MASS OF OLD CROCHET PATTERNS SOME TIME BACK .THESE ARE THE ONES I KEPT,MUST ADMIT I USUALLY MAKE UP MY PATTERNS NOW AS I GO.
Given the resurgence of photos diverted in my stream, erotic photos will no longer be available to the public, as of this day.
Thanks for your understanding...
Jim P.
(devant la recrudescence de photos détournées dans mon stream, les photos érotiques ne seront plus accessibles au public, à compter de ce jour.
Merci pour votre compréhension...
Jim P.)
When given the opportunity to build a new kitchen for the agency, you can rest assured I sieged the opportunity to infuse award winning koolnez. At the very core of the concept was the utilization of industrial shop shelving units in lieu of base cabinets. Various other "shop" component were also used (a tool box for the silverware storage) to complete the vibe.
Yeah, we love it!
Plenty of opportunity here today for using the camera as a means of 'painting a picture', given enough 'where-with-all' to realise the potential when its available and usually, here, this is the case. In this three part panorama/composite, a few folk are about crossing the old 'stepping bridge', some historic detail was given about this here-
www.flickr.com/photos/daohaiku/29082080745/in/
and two of the bridge personnel are at least interested in what's going on and who had waited for the arrival of the RHTT with fortunately, one of the H.N.R.C.'s 'Satsuma' liveried stock, 20314, on the front, whilst the other two crossing back over the bridge, are oblivious. Its a real shame, in these conditions, that the set had been to the 'car wash' and turned up looking pristine but that never happens once the season gets under way, this is only the middle of the third week and so almost another 6 weeks to go! Although DRS had run their own pair of class 20s, 20302 and 20303 for a short while, starting out on October 11th, a poor shot in the dark was taken of them at Carnaby, near the east coast resort of Bridlington, see-
www.flickr.com/photos/daohaiku/48907858018/in/
things went down-hill from there and 20303 was removed to have work undertaken on it and the set then ran with these two, today Harry Needle's 20314, ex-D8117, on the front, with the DRS blue-job, 20302 on the back. The two 'enthusiasts' appear momentarily distracted by what's going happening on the canal bridge, though its just three of us looking and talking enthusiastically about the RHTT passage in its less than pristine state. Behind the 'orange' are the 'blues', the usual set of'"Sandite Units', FEA-B RHTT A Tank Wagons and at the back, a grimy DRS blue 20, 20302, the latter barely recognisable from this view as it appears out of the lineside shrubbery. This is the 3rd section of the RHTT run today and earlier, the working, 3S11 which should have come out of York Thrall at 04:15, arriving in Sheffield at 06:36, was cancelled due to- 'This service was cancelled due to a request by the train operator (FL)...' and hence the following working back north, 3S12, also had to be cancelled, both of these being replaced by a V.S.T.P., 3J12, at 07:45 which left York Thrall at 07:45 but now bound for Woodburn Junction; missing out Sheffield completely on this day. The VSTP service at the later time to Woodburn, then ran on its usual eastern jaunt, 3S13, to Gainsborough Central, arriving back at Woodburn at 11:18, in preparation for this working, 3S14, at 11:29 to Hull and from the re, on the 3S15, back to York Thrall Europa, arriving at 19:03. ONe assumes that the 1st working of the day, 3S11, from York to Sheffield, didn't run due to problems with the other DRS blue class 20, 20303 and this had to be substituted for the HNRC unit, 20314.. What a day!
2007 Mattel USA Catalog. This was a catalog given to store managers, a vendor catalog, with manufacturing numbers so store managers could order items to then sell in their stores. All items in this catalog should have a packaging date of 2006, the date on the Barbie box or fashion pack should be 2006. Remember these are like "production", "press", or "prototype" information so the actual dolls and fashions sold in store might be slightly different have different colors, etc. This is especially true for the cheaper items and playsets. special editions and store exclusives may not be listed here. Items in this catalog include Barbie as Princess Rosella from DVD movie Barbie as The Island Princess, item number K8103 and K8104, K9268 Assortment number L3131. Princess Luciana item number K8105, K8106, L3130, Ken as Prince Antonio K8107, K8108. Barbie Royal Princess assortment number L2582 and item numbers L2583, L2584, L2585. Fairytopia Rainbow Adventure Elina K8130, K8131. Barbie I Can Be A Ballet Teacher item number K8627, Barbie I Can Be Cake Baker item number K8627, K8626, K8629, assortment number K8625, Horse Tawny, Gymnastic Divas, Barbie I Can be Pet Sitter, Baby Photographer Art Teacher, Barbie Beach Glam, Barbie Fashion Fever K8495, K8496, K8497, K8494, K8471, K8472, K8473, K8474, K8475, K8476, K8477, K8478, K8463, K8462, K8465, K8467, K8464, K8466, K8504, K8503, K8505, K8506, K8507, L0863, L0866, L0867, L0868, L0869, Fashion Fever Hillary Duff Dolls and Fashion Packs
If you found this useful please stop by BarbieReference.com and click an ad to support the site. More pages from this catalog are only available on BarbieReference.com
I no longer share catalogs without the website name on them because people posted my images on Facebook and Pinterest without giving me credit. You are welcome to download and repost catalog pages with the BarbieReference.com watermark on them. A link back to my website is also appreciated.
Today and tomorrow will be my beer days. Since I've given up drinking beer during the week outside of business meetings or shoots involving free beer, I figure today was ok to indulge. My Aunt and Uncle and Cousins are in town again after there week long sun fest on the west coast. We have the beer and liquor, fire wood and food. Now were all ready to let loose and have fun.
I figured a portrait of the boys of the family would be great. They are all crazy and each one picks on the next. My uncle used to come over and say he had something for us. He'd dig in his pocket and we'd get excited. He'd pull out a balled fist and hover over our head. At this point we were still naive and expecting something amazing. He would then boink us in the head with his middle finger while smiling from ear to ear. He was in his late 20's and we were barley 10. He got a kick out of it and we walked away rubbing our head. When he had his own kids he severely cut back on the boinking! I wonder why?
Lighting: The portrait was shot with a single AB800 with Med. softbox set at 1/2 power. After several shots they all loosened up and their true personality shined. I love shots like this because they make everyone smile when looking at it.
Tomorrow will be the Polish version of Easter with Parogies and ham. Strange but hell, I love it!
Want More?
Check out behind the scenes photos. | Find out where I'll be | Read the complete story