The Lady Who Dances Beautifully
Toraja · deity · primordial / creation · Recorded classification
Indo' Belo Tumbang, 'the lady who dances beautifully', is the goddess of the medicine that cures the sick among the Sa'dan Toraja. She is invoked in the maro, the great ecstatic curing ritual belonging to the rites of the rising sun, in which chanting and trance-dancing participants seek healing; the central female celebrant of the ritual bears the title tumbang, which the goddess's own name echoes. Her worship attests the therapeutic dimension of the deata, the gods of the Toraja pantheon, alongside the funerary and cosmogonic concerns of the tradition.
Domains
- healing
Powers
- to bring the medicine that cures the sick
Sources
- Indo' Belo Tumbang, 'the lady who dances beautifully', is the Sa'dan Toraja goddess of the medicine that cures the sick, invoked in the ecstatic maro ritual.: 'Toraja Religion', in Mircea Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 14 (New York: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 565-567 (secondary); Hetty Nooy-Palm, The Sa'dan-Toraja: A Study of Their Social Life and Religion, vol. II: Rituals of the East and West (Verhandelingen van het KITLV 118; Dordrecht: Foris, 1986) (secondary)