Instead of burying or cremating the dead, the people of the remote Trunyan village on Bali Island, Indonesia, place the bodies in bamboo cages, exposing them to the sun until they fully decompose.
In Trunyan village, located on the remote island of Bali in Indonesia, the locals have a very strange and haunting custom. When someone in the village passes away, their body is transported by boat across Lake Batur to the Trunyan cemetery to be… exposed.
Trunyan is the only village on Bali with this bizarre custom. Only those who were married at the time of death are “honored” in this manner, while unmarried individuals are buried in a separate cemetery near the village.
The deceased are brought to this cemetery by boat, washed clean with rainwater, dressed to expose their heads, and placed in bamboo cages to dry under the sweltering Bali sun.
The corpses in cages are placed near the Taru Menyan tree—a special type of tree that emits a fragrance that can overpower the strong odor of decomposition in the cemetery.
Once the bodies have fully decomposed, the locals will “re-inter” by taking the skulls of the deceased and placing them on a stone altar under the sacred tree in the cemetery. The remaining bones will be removed from the cage to make room for another deceased person.
Usually, only men are permitted to enter this haunting cemetery. They are also the ones who change the clothes, wash the bodies, and perform the “re-inter” process whenever someone new passes away.
If women from the village deliberately come here, it is believed that the village of Trunyan will face dreadful natural disasters like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
The practice of exposing the dead in Bali also shares similarities with the exhumation rituals of the Toraja tribe in South Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Both of these horrifying customs aim to honor the deceased, expressing gratitude and love with respect to their ancestors.
In Bali, not only do they expose the deceased to honor them, but the locals also celebrate strange traditional festivals like Brutuk.
The Brutuk festival typically lasts for three consecutive days, running from noon to 5 PM. Only young men are allowed to participate in this festival; they must isolate themselves to “purify” themselves for 42 days before it begins.
Young men will wrap dry banana leaves around themselves and run around the temple to honor the traditional symbol, the Barong lion.
