The Indonesian Tribe That Exhumes Their Dead Each Year To Spruce Them Up

WARNING: This article contains graphic images

It's a long-standing tradition, and rightly well-documented each year.

Of course, everywhere is different, and everywhere has their own traditions, but to most observers, this one might seem a little bit out there.

So, in case you're not familiar with it, at this time of year the Toraja Tribe, who live in South Sulawesi, dig up their dearly departed loved ones in order to give them a right old sprucing up.

They take family pictures with them, dress them in fine new clothes, and - as mentioned - give them a cigarette if they have one to hand.

It's a great way to think about death, and a great way to remember the good memories you had with your deceased family members, too.

There are about a million Torajan people in Indonesia, and they're heavily concentrated in South Sulawesi, and most of them believe that the soul of a dead relative stays in the house after they pass on.

That means that they're effectively treated like a member of the family, meaning that they get clothes, food, and - should they so desire - a fag, too.

The ritual is called 'Ma'nene' and it is basically a time when family members exhume and clean the bodies of their dead.

Unlike over in the western world, where the dead are handled by professionals and largely only for a short time, families have been known to keep their dead in the house for weeks - even months - after their death.

In that time, they'll be treated as if they've never died, including being spoken to and being fed, before a lavish funeral at a later time.

It's rooted in the belief that a person's death is just one more step in their journey through the universe as a whole.

Quite nice, really, isn't it?

In 2016, one Torajan women told National Geographic: "My mother died suddenly, so we aren't ready yet to let her go.

"I can't accept burying her too quickly."

When you put it that way, it's actually quite an understandable reaction to the inevitable grief of losing a loved one.

We can all get behind that, surely?