The Strange Burial Customs of Trunyan Village
Photo credit: Yusuf IJsseldijk/Wikimedia Commons
According to local lore, the Bali Aga people treat their dead this way to avoid enraging the volcano near which the town resides. To appease the volcano, identified as the Hindu god Brahma, there is also a temple in Trunyan with eleven pagodas to correspond to the eleven palm and bamboo cages in the cemetery. Once these are filled, the oldest one will be moved out and the remains dispersed along the cemetery ground.
Because burials take place only on auspicious days, and the family has to raise money for the funeral, some corpses stay at home for days or weeks before they get a chance to be interred. To prevent the corpses from going bad during the long wait villagers use formaldehyde, which might explain why these corpses do not smell.
According to local lore, the Bali Aga people treat their dead this way to avoid enraging the volcano near which the town resides. To appease the volcano, identified as the Hindu god Brahma, there is also a temple in Trunyan with eleven pagodas to correspond to the eleven palm and bamboo cages in the cemetery. Once these are filled, the oldest one will be moved out and the remains dispersed along the cemetery ground.
Because burials take place only on auspicious days, and the family has to raise money for the funeral, some corpses stay at home for days or weeks before they get a chance to be interred. To prevent the corpses from going bad during the long wait villagers use formaldehyde, which might explain why these corpses do not smell.
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01 September 2023
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