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The Documentary Podcast

Living with the Dead

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.32.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2017

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Since the beginning of time, man has lived in awe and fear of death, and every culture has faced its mystery through intricate and often ancient rituals. Few, however, are as extreme as those of the Torajan people on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Here, the dead are a constant presence, with corpses often kept in family homes for many years. When funerals are eventually held, they don’t mean goodbye. Once every couple of years, the dead are dug back out for a big family reunion.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC World Service. I'm Sahazand and over the next half an hour I'm going to be

0:05.4

taking you on an extraordinary journey.

0:11.4

Past the living room where the family are sitting down having coffee,

0:15.7

there is a small room, three meters by three meters.

0:19.7

On the right there is the bed, a big bed.

0:24.1

On the bed there is a man sleeping.

0:28.3

His daughter Lisa is lovingly stroking his hair, as her young children keep

0:33.5

running in and out of the room.

0:42.2

There's a feeling, a heart to heart feeling, an emotional connection that's still

0:46.9

between us because there was such love between a daughter and a father.

0:51.6

Whenever I go to work I always come up and I say,

0:54.8

father, I'm going to work now and I let him know everything that I'm doing with my day.

1:00.4

So we communicate that way.

1:04.5

He looks a bit grey and he has holes on his face.

1:07.6

As if insects have been eating through.

1:10.6

I can see his teeth, all of his features.

1:13.9

It's a shame I would have liked to see his hands, but they're covered,

1:17.6

saw his feet.

1:19.4

He's also wearing a pair of reading glasses,

1:22.5

so dusty that I can hardly see his eyes.

1:39.8

Now here's a strange thing about this man, Serinda.

1:43.4

He died over 12 years ago.

...

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