For most of us, when our loved ones die, they are laid to rest eternally. But the deceased of Toraja in South Sulawesi, Indonesia get many chances to see their families again.
In a ritual called Ma’nene or The Ceremony of Cleaning Corpses — families raise their deceased relatives from their graves, dress them in new clothes, fix their hair and repair their coffins. Then, they walk the dead around the province so they can observe the living.
Those unaccustomed to such bold tradition might find the ritual morbid, disrespectful and even unsanitary. But there’s something solemnly beautiful about families that continue to care for those they love even after their deaths.