Contentment and suffering : culture and experience in Toraja

This ethnography of the Toraja wet-rice farmers of Indonesia provides a portrait of Torajan life and contributes to debates on the relationship between culture and individual psychology. Hollan and Wellenkamp describe the central aspects of Torajan personal experience - emotion, identity and sense of self - and a variety of fascinating cultural practices, including possession trance, kickfights, elaborate mortuary customs, dream interpretation and buffalo sacrifice.