You are invited in, and you sit down, and you need say nothing

The guide stops at the funeral's entrance, hands the host family a pack of cigarettes, says a few words, then turns and says one may go in. Inside, two rows of temporary bamboo stands are set up in the courtyard, the coffin in the middle, wrapped outside in red and gold cloth; the host family's elders sit at the front, mourners coming in batch by batch. No one weeps in a hushed voice; here it is more like a vast, solemn family gathering.

The Torajans believe death is not an end but the start of a long journey. Before the funeral is formally held, the deceased is not reckoned to have "left" but is regarded as "a sick person" — his room kept as it was, family bringing food in each day, tending him as usual. This waiting can last years, until the whole family is ready in means and hands, before the grand farewell is held. That waiting is not avoidance but a reluctance to let go, a love.

At the funeral, the family offers water buffalo — in Torajan belief, only thus can the soul of the departed set off smoothly for the place they call the "land of souls." The scene is grand and solemn, the whole village setting down its work to send him off together over several days. A very old man sits in the front row of the stand, quiet from start to finish; you do not know him, yet you can tell he is sending off someone of his own generation.

After the funeral, the deceased is not buried in earth but placed in a tomb hewn high into the cliff face. Along the cliff edge stand carved wooden figures called tau-tau, made in the likeness of the dead, facing the village, as if to keep watching the days below for them. Standing beneath the cliff looking up at those figures, one feels a strange reassurance: here, those who have left have not truly gone far, only moved to a higher, quieter place.

From the courtyard come low chanting and the occasional laughter, children weaving between the stands, coffee and cakes passed round in rounds. Death here is not hidden away but surrounded, kept company, by a whole family — as if to lay the last stretch of road a little livelier for the one setting out, so he will not walk it too alone.

When I left, the courtyard's voices still followed behind. The sun was strong, the mountains far off, and I said nothing, only walked on along the road. That stretch of time sitting there — a stranger's farewell, a way of seeing death as a slow setting-out — I did not yet know where in my heart to place it. But of one thing I was sure: I think if you too had sat through that, then afterwards, the way you see "parting" would be a little, just a little, different.