Sulawesi - GIS

These ancient cemetery of Minahasan ancestors consist of 144 stone sarcophagi, remnants of the Megalithic age. "Waruga" sarcophagi are unique square stone with holes in the middle and prism shaped lids. The tombs are carved with various motifs such as human beings, plants, animals, and traditional geometrical motifs like clouds, strings, curls and double braids. The cemetery is located in Sawangan village, about 24 km from Manado.

Waruga is a stone grave made of domato stone or mountain stone. Some warugas are already hundreds of years old, some of them are 500 years old, and some are even 1,200 years old. In 1817, the warugas were collected, and they were all 144 warugas. All over Minahasa, there are 2,000 warugas. The making of waruga was prohibited in 1800 because of the spreading of cholera and typhoid which might be caused by the unpleasant smell coming out of the warugas. Since then, dead people have been buried under the ground.

Waruga is the traditional cemetery of Minahasan. That time, everybody made their own warugas. On the warugas they carved motifs which reflected each of their occupations. If the person was a judge, then the motif was court of justice. In the cemetery, there is a waruga with the motif of a woman giving birth to a child. It is said that it is the grave of a midwives. According to the local belief, childless couple could have children if they visit the midwives waruga.

The way to do a funeral:
When a person dies, then the corpse will be seated on a chair and tied there until it is stiff. After that, the corpse is untied, and then it is brought to circle the house three times as a symbol that the person is no longer among his/her family, but in another world. The corpse then put into waruga with a plate under it, and all his/her beloved things (such as: blade, glass, bracelet, necklace, beads, pendant, etc) are also put inside waruga.

Source:

http://www.petra.ac.id/eastern/north_sul/tour_obj/waruga.htm

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