The Lord Who Is a Cock

Pong Lalondong, 'the lord who is a cock', is the god of death of the Sa'dan Toraja and the master of Puya, the land of the souls, which lies in the south-west beneath the earth's surface. In the death chants (badong) collected by H. van der Veen, the soul of the deceased travels the perilous road to Puya, where the much-feared Pong Lalondong stands guard over the way and sits in judgment over the dead; a chant places in his mouth the declaration that he enters the Land of the Souls to cut short the lives of those whose span is at its end. A soul that passes his judgment may climb the mountain toward the upper world to be numbered among the deified ancestors who watch over their descendants. His cock nature accords with the divinatory and juridical associations of the cock and the cockfight in Toraja custom, and his splendid plumage is connected with his office as judge.

Domains

• death
• underworld
• fate

Powers

• to judge the souls of the dead in the land of Puya
• to cut the thread of life when a person's span is complete

Sources

• Hetty Nooy-Palm, The Sa'dan-Toraja: A Study of Their Social Life and Religion, vol. I: Organization, Symbols and Beliefs (Verhandelingen van het KITLV 87; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979)
• H. van der Veen, The Sa'dan Toradja Chant for the Deceased and Its Place in the Death Ritual (Verhandelingen van het KITLV 49; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966)
• Michaela Budiman, Contemporary Funeral Rituals of Sa'dan Toraja: From Aluk Todolo to 'New' Religions (Prague: Karolinum Press, 2013)