Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp.

27±50, 2000
Pergamon # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
0160-7383/99/$20.00+0.00
www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures
PII: S0160-7383(99)00034-1

DYNAMIC TEXTS AND TOURIST

GAZE
Death, Bones and Buffalo

Andrew McGregor
University of Sydney, Australia

Abstract: Contemporary cultural studies, including tourism research, have largely avoided
analysing the effects of texts upon individuals. This gap is addressed by examining the
dynamic relationships between guidebooks and tourists through interviews carried out in
Tana Toraja, Indonesia. Reliance upon a limited number of international guidebooks led to a
commodi®ed experience and gaze, these sources ``tutoring'' tourists to gaze at aspects of
Tana Toraja either comparatively, enthusiastically, or with disinterest, in order to realise an
``authentic exotic'' Other. A model linking the relationship between guidebooks, spoken
communication, and the conceptual spheres dominating tourists' perceptions is developed,
arguing for greater recognition of the dynamism of texts in both tourism and cultural stu-
dies. Keywords: tourist gaze, Tana Toraja, perception, experience, guidebooks, text. # 1999
Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

ReÂsume Â: Textes dynamiques et regards touristiques: la mort, les os et les buf¯es. Les Âetudes
de culture contemporaine, y compris les recherches en tourisme, ont largement ÂeviteÂ
d'analyser l'effet des textes sur les individus. On aborde ce manque en examinant la relation
dynamique entre guides de voyage et touristes aÁ travers des interviews reÂaliseÂs Áa Tana
Toraja (IndoneÂsie). L'utilisation d'un nombre restreint de guides internationaux a mene a Á
une expeÂrience et aÁ une contemplation d'une marchandise, puisque ces guides apprennent
aux touristes aÁ contempler certains aspects de Tana Toraja de manieÁre comparative,
enthousiaste ou deÂsinteÂresseÂe pour y voir un Autre ``authentique et exotique''. On deÂveloppe
un modeÁle qui lie les guides de voyage, la communication parleÂe et les spheÁres conceptuelles
qui dominent les perceptions des touristes, en appuyant une plus grande reconnaissance du
dynamisme des textes dans des Âetudes culturelles et touristiques. Mots-cle Âs: contemplation
par des touristes, Tana Toraja, perception, expeÂrience, guides de voyage, texte. # 1999 Else-
vier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

``Saw plenty of buffaloes (also plenty of dead ones). Strange

habits these Torajans have, but interesting. Morbid habits we
tourists have. Visiting graves, going to funerals for fun. Nice
(Anonymous)''
``Don't expect nicey-nicey at funeralsÐexpect gore splattered blood-
lust, crimson gushing neck gapes, pigs screaming like banshees
while being disemboweled alive after having major arteries severed.

Andrew McGregor (Department of Geography, University of Sydney NSW 2006, Australia.

Email: < amcgrego@mail.usyd.edu.au >) has traveled extensively in Indonesia and visited
Sulawesi on a number of occasions, studying the role of guidebooks upon tourist experiences
and perceptions. His current research focuses upon the dynamic relationships between texts
and cultural understandings.

27
28 DYNAMIC TOURIST TEXTS

All HalalÐall brutal; I loved it. Veggie with attitude, England. (1994
guest entries at Legend Guesthouse, Ujung Pandang)''

INTRODUCTION
The cultural turn that has swept the social sciences since the 70s
has led to a repositioning of text within academic analyses, and a
rethinking of its importance in understanding and researching cul-
ture. In deconstructing texts, which can include ``paint on canvas,
writing on paper, images on ®lm as well as in earth, stone, water,
and vegetation on the ground'' (Cosgrove and Daniels 1988:3),
insights relating to the society and culture of the author at the time
of the textual production can be uncovered. Texts are analysed to
expose the author's culturally speci®c ``ways of seeing'' the world, as
all of them, to different degrees, are now considered to incorporate
the culture of the author. However this postmodern turn in cultural
studies has not come without its problems and critics. The greatest
challenge facing the continued evolution of a textually-based cul-
tural research agenda involves the issue of reception. Hampering
the development of this ®eld is a general reluctance by researchers
to extend their investigations beyond the relationship of the text to
the technologies and cultures that in¯uenced its production.
Despite a growing interest in the reception and interpretation of
texts (Harrison and Burgess 1994; Jensen 1986; Lipsitz 1994;
Mitchell 1997), their in¯uence on the consumer, how the inherent
messages and ideas are incorporated, rejected or transformed by
the individual and come to affect the society and culture to which
the individual belongs, are still often ignored or only lightly hypoth-
esized upon within textual research. Most contemporary research
(particularly in tourism) positions the academic as having a unique
gift that allows him or her to (correctly) untangle and interpret the
web of discourses, myths and meanings inscribed in any textual nar-
rative, without consulting non-academic readers for their interpret-
ations.
Texts, far from being static markers of cultural traits, as they are
often perceived in contemporary academic analyses, are actually
dynamic agents that are continually in¯uencing, modifying and rei-
fying the meanings, beliefs and ways of seeing, of contemporary cul-
tural groups. It is insuf®cient to continue the direction adopted by
many contemporary textual critics ``to locate meaning in texts and
to leave the interpretation of that meaning to one recipient: the
analyst'' (Jensen 1986:15). This approach rei®es the idea of the
``objective'' researcher, a person who is somehow beyond the in¯u-
ence of his/her own personal ethnography, an idea that textual ana-
lysts themselves would reject. Instead, consumers of texts must be
approached to see how they, rather than highly-educated and criti-
cally-trained academics, make sense of and create meaning from
the narratives. The basis of this approach is the assertion that texts
themselves, by themselves, have no meaning. The producers of texts
 ANDREW MCGREGOR 29

encode them with meanings and messages, but if there are no

humans to interpret them, they are just another meaningless object
of the material world. Texts have no intrinsic meaning independent
of the process of conscious interpretation; in other words, meaning
is (re)created at the point of reception, and ``the [human] subject
[is] the source or producer of meaning'' (Jensen 1986:15). This
paper attempts to go beyond the deductive approaches to text that
dominates much current cultural research to recognize their
dynamic properties, by investigating the relationship between text
and tourists in Tana Toraja, Indonesia. The dynamic properties of
texts, how they in¯uence tourist experiences, gazes, and the conse-
quent mental constructions of place, form the central theme of this
article.

TOURISM AND THE DYNAMIC PROPERTIES OF TEXTS

Textual representations of places play a fundamental role in the
tourism industry as the product, the experience and destination, is
normally purchased prior to arrival (Fakeye and Crompton 1991).
Previous research in this ®eld has concentrated upon the textual
images of places the tourist is purchasing when a destination is
selected. Scholars from a wide range of ®elds (Adams 1984; Cohen
1989; Edwards 1996; Hughes 1992; Hummon 1988; King 1992; Lew
1991; Silver 1993) have deconstructed promotional images to gain
insights into the culture of the tourist experience. The motivations
and desires are often hypothesized upon through studying represen-
tations, but little research has speci®cally concentrated upon the re-
lationship between text and tourism. Instead the text has been
positioned as a static marker of tourist culture, a vehicle to be
deconstructed by the academic to gain insights into different
aspects of the phenomenon. Cohen's (1993) theoretical study of
tourist imagery and representations outlines the two main direc-
tions of inquiry dominating contemporary image-based research.
The extrinsic direction focuses upon the discrepancies between rep-
resentation and reality, the intrinsic upon the messages and styles
of the image itself. Both these directions are legitimate and extre-
mely valuable to tourism studies, but it is rare for researchers in
these ®elds to consult non-academic audiences for their interpret-
ations (despite Cohen's suggestion to involve tourists), and hence
fall foul of Squire's criticism that ``the researcher retains the pos-
ition of power, telling readers what tourism means and how such
meanings are culturally constructed, communicated and inter-
preted'' (1994:8).
This article argues that a third direction should be adopted in
studies of images and texts, a dynamic direction, which focuses
upon the power of texts and images to in¯uence tourist experiences,
ways of seeing and perceptions of place. The dynamic dimension of
texts, the active and ongoing in¯uence they have over the experi-
ence, has not been adequately addressed, a surprising lacuna given
the widespread interest in both the tourism experience and textual
30 DYNAMIC TOURIST TEXTS

representations. Probably the best theoretical work in this area has

been produced by Dann (1996) who concentrates upon the control
that the language of tourism asserts over the experience. According
to him, language not only guides but controls tourists, reducing
them to ``chasers of images'' (1996:83) seeking what they have been
told to see, rendering the apparent freedom of tourism largely illu-
sory. However, despite the macro-level theories being promoted by
Dann, little empirical research has yet been conducted focusing
upon the relationship between texts and what Urry (1990) has
termed ``the tourist gaze'', the ways of seeing and interpreting new
places.

Authenticity, Image and Tourism

The strongest argument against the suggestion that tourists
simply base their mental images of places upon the often mislead-
ing ones portrayed in the travel literature (as is often inferred by
researchers examining tourism texts) comes in the in¯uential work
of MacCannell (1976). He proposed that people tour to escape the
isolation imposed upon them by modernity and search for authentic
experiences in foreign destinations. This in effect is a quest for
authenticity, making it unlikely that tourists would benignly accept
the industry's textual representations of a place as reality at a desti-
nation. Instead they are driven by a desire to see past the text into
the ``reality'' of a destination: ``Sightseers are motivated by the
desire to see life as it is really lived, even to get it in with the
natives . . .'' (1973:592). This belief that touring allows participants
to see past inauthentic or misleading images has long been associ-
ated with tourism, as evidenced in Mark Twain's claim that ``Travel
is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness'' (quoted in
Crick 1989:307). Cohen (1979) has suggested that the desire for
authenticity has in¯uenced tourists to the point that when they
gaze on places they mentally try to separate the authentic from the
inauthentic. The relationship between what is considered to be
``authentic'', and textual representations of authenticity, remains
under-researched.
Whilst having an important in¯uence upon tourism research,
MacCannell's ideas have come under attack from a number of
researchers for a variety of reasons. Pearce (1988) has lamented the
lack of empirical studies being carried out to assess MacCannell's
theories critically, whilst Bruner's subsequent empirical study con-
cluded that the data gathered by his paper ``suggests the contrary,
that most tourists are quite satis®ed with their own society, most
are not alienated, and they are not necessarily seeking authentic ex-
periences elsewhere'' (1991:240). The most consistent criticism of
MacCannell, however, is of his simplistic portrayal of tourists as one
homogeneous group (Cohen 1979; Hamilton-Smith 1987). This is
opposed to prior work published by Cohen (1972) and subsequent
work by Smith (1977), Pearce (1982), Hamilton-Smith (1987), and
Yiannakis and Gibson (1991), all of whom proposed different tourist
 ANDREW MCGREGOR 31

typologies based on motivation and behavior. The quest for authen-

ticity, to go beyond textual representations, is important only for
some groups of tourists, whilst others, such as Cohen's (1979b)
``diversionary'' tourists, may be quite satis®ed by what one advertis-
ing brochure has curiously described as ``authentic reproduction''
(Bruner 1991).
When considering the experience it is possible to suggest that the
less a particular tourist type cares about the concept of authenticity,
the greater the likelihood that textual representations of places will
have a strong in¯uence upon their perception of place. If they are
there for diversion, rather than ``quest'' (Hamilton-Smith 1987),
there is little need for them to question textual representations.
The experience may actually be more enjoyable (recognizing that
tourists ``buy'' a certain image before they arrive at the destination)
if these representations are not touched, as this will allow them to
realize the image they have come to see. The authenticity of that
image may become largely irrelevant in terms of satisfaction. A
number of researchers have analysed perceptions of mass tourists
(Anastopoulos 1992; Pizam, Milman and Jafari 1991; Laxson 1991;
Milman, Reichel and Pizam 1990), most concluding that their per-
ceptions of local people do not change post-tourism. However, none
of these studies have adequately analysed the dynamic role of texts
in in¯uencing people's perceptions. A critique of diversionary tour-
ists (most often mass tourists) would possibly reveal an extremely
strong relationship between text and perception, and would prob-
ably provide grounds for another academic attack on this already
much maligned tourist subgroup (Thurot and Thurot 1983). A more
interesting approach is to look at the role of the text on the percep-
tions of those tourists for whom the search for authentic experi-
ences is, theoretically, central to their motivation and hence the
in¯uence of text is likely to be minimized.
The most common name given to those who are seeking to dis-
cover the ``reality'' of places, and indeed the common name they
give themselves, is ``traveler'' (Hamilton-Smith 1987). Travelers
have been under-researched in tourism studies (Cohen 1984:378)
and as a result have been constructed, somewhat uncritically in aca-
demic texts, as the ``good'' to the mass tourists' ``bad''. The most
popular way of distinguishing travelers from tourists is by ``their
quest for authenticity [which] is on the whole more serious and
demanding than that of the ordinary mass tourist'' (Cohen
1989:31). This traditional approach to typologies based on perceived
desires for authenticity has recently been criticized by May (1996),
who has shown that discourses of authenticity are evident and im-
portant to many different ``types'' of tourists and tourist experi-
ences. Moreover, these types are not homogeneous in their desire
for authenticity; their motivations and desires, of which concepts of
authenticity are only one competing factor, differ from person to
person. A second way of de®ning travelers (Cohen 1972) is by asses-
sing the extent of their immersion in the ``tourist bubble'' the cush-
ion the travel industry provides between the host culture and the
32 DYNAMIC TOURIST TEXTS

culture of the tourist in terms of facilities and services. Mass tour-

ists are constructed as being content in a more embracing tourist
bubble, enjoying the comforts of Western-style hotels in non-
Western countries, hiring specially-trained multi-lingual guides who
minimise the need for intercultural interaction, and taking tour
buses rather than risking the dif®culties associated with public
transport. Alternatively, travelers attempt to minimize the bubble
and immerse themselves in the host culture by utilising as few tour-
ist-oriented services as possible. In terms of texts, they are expected
to have less exposure and less reliance upon tourist-oriented texts,
whether they be guidebooks, pamphlets, videos, or the narratives of
tour guides, because of their rejection of these things as being as-
sociated with (mass) ``tourists''.

Figure 1. Location Map Showing Tanatoraja Study Area

 ANDREW MCGREGOR 33

Tourism in Tana Toraja

In order to investigate the relationship between text, experience,
gaze, and perception of place, travelers (as de®ned above) were
interviewed at the popular destination of Tana Toraja in South
Sulawesi, Indonesia (Figure 1). Tana Toraja has been a focal point
for both tourists and anthropologists for many years. Most anthro-
pological work has focused upon tradition, belief and change within
Torajan society (Achsin 1991; Adams 1988; Nooy-Palm 1979, 1986;
Sandarupa 1984; Volkman 1984) whilst more recent work headed by
Adams (1984, 1993, 1995, 1997) and Volkman (1987, 1990) has con-
centrated speci®cally upon the relationship between anthropology
and tourism in Tana Toraja. The ®rst consistent contact between
Torajans and Westerners began in 1913 when the ®rst Dutch mis-
sionaries arrived and attempted to convert Torajans away from
their Aluk to Dolo (local religion) to Christianity. Foreign tourists
did not follow till 1971 when the ®rst ®fty foreigners visited the
region in the aftermath of Indonesia's 1969 tourism-conscious ``Five
Year Plan'' (Volkman 1987). Tourist numbers continued to rise
through the 70s and received a healthy boost in 1984 when the
Indonesian Director General of Tourism declared Tana Toraja the
``touristic primadona of South Sulawesi'' (Adams 1997). The phenom-
enal rise of Tana Toraja as an international site is re¯ected in
recent ®gures that show 47000 foreign tourists visited the region in
1992 (Kantor Pusat Informasi Wisata, Tana Toraja, records).
Somewhat ironically, considering the efforts of the Dutch mission-
aries to stamp out Aluk to Dolo (which was only of®cially recognized
as a legitimate religion by the Indonesian government in 1969), the
primary draw-card for foreign tourists is thought to be the ``exotic''
traditions of the Torajan people linked to this religion (Volkman
1987). Adams (1984) has examined the way Tana Toraja has been
``brokered'' to mass tourists, ®nding an inordinate focus upon the
``exotic'' houses and death rituals associated with long-standing
Torajan beliefs and traditions. Tourists have now become a perma-
nent feature of the Torajan landscape, in¯uencing how ``tourism
objects'' are reworked to ®t the gaze (Volkman 1990) and through
their presence, becoming vital pawns in regional and local power
politics (Adams 1995, 1997). Today, a highly visible touristic infra-
structure has developed centered around the town of Rantepao.
Huge, fully-catered luxury hotels, that can charge over $200 a
night, attract package tourists to the fringes of the town, whilst the
majority of travelers ®nd budget accommodation around the town
center (or nearby Batutumonga) starting at $3 a night. Five differ-
ent tourism information centers, providing guides, advice, and a
number of pamphlets representing Tana Toraja have arisen in re-
sponse to the growing demand, as have a number of tourism-
oriented restaurants, jewelry shops, and souvenir shops.
Tana Toraja was chosen as the study site for three primary
reasons. Firstly this is a well established traveler destination which
could be reasonably expected to attract the majority of arrivals
34 DYNAMIC TOURIST TEXTS

through Sulawesi and attracting many more from nearby islands.

Tana Toraja forms a hub where most types of visitors within this
region of Indonesia could reasonably be expected to be found.
Secondly, Tana Toraja has a wide range of activities to participate
in, making it a place to stay for several days (73% stayed for four
days or longer) rather than pass quickly through. This was expected
to decrease the in¯uence of texts on their gazes, having more time
to see beyond textual representations than in places where they
may stay for only one or two nights. Thirdly, Tana Toraja was
selected because its primary attraction is its culture (Volkman
1990). As such, travelers were expected to interact more with the
local culture, again decreasing their reliance upon textual images
and sources.
The research was conducted in June 1994. Fifty-®ve interviews
were carried out with randomly-selected foreign travelers in places
where they often had free time and regularly met up with others,
predominantly wismas (cheap homestay-style accommodation) and
traveler-oriented restaurants. Whilst there was no pressure or
incentives placed upon them to participate, there were no refusals
from those approached. Interviews were carried out in English with
what turned out to be a predominantly European (85%) sample
group (McGregor 1994). They were asked a series of standard ques-
tions to investigate their experiences and perceptions but the inter-
viewer was free to pursue particular ideas or issues that arose
during the discussions. Consequently interviews varied in length
from ®fteen minutes to well over an hour. Further informal infor-
mation was gathered through participant observation and inter-
actions with travelers in a variety of settings.

Pre-Arrival Images
The ®rst step in analysing the dynamism of travelers' texts was
to determine what they had been exposed to, and how those texts
construct Tana Toraja. Travelers indicated that two main sources of
background information had in¯uenced their decision to visit Tana
Toraja: guidebooks and verbal communication with other travelers
or friends. The only people who claimed they did not refer to a
guidebook in constructing their pre-arrival image were 8% of the
participants who had already visited the region at least once before.
Just over 50% were in¯uenced by both talking to other people and
reading their guidebooks, whilst 40% indicated that they had only
been in¯uenced by their guidebooks. Those who were in¯uenced by
other travelers and their guidebooks indicated that the latter acted
in a con®rmatory role, the process being typi®ed by the following
comment, ``First we heard about it, then we looked it up in the
guidebook''. They would hear about the region through personal
communication with other travelers, and then assess the value of
the destination by investigating guidebook recommendations and
representations. The guidebooks provide ``propositional assertions''
(Lloyd 1982:540) of what a place is like, and depending largely upon
 ANDREW MCGREGOR 35

guidebook constructions (in conjunction with spoken depictions),

travelers decide whether they want to visit a place or not. The
guidebooks were found to exert an inordinate amount of power over
them and their destinations. This included both how they construct
places and, more powerfully perhaps, which places are discussed as
potential destinations. Few travelers indicated that they had inten-
tionally visited places that were not mentioned in their guidebooks
(despite expressing an obvious pride in experiencing ``non-guide-
book'' places), re¯ecting the importance of information to tourism:
``if tourists do not know about travel ways, attractions, services, and
facilities, and do not know how to get to them, tourism does not
occur'' (Gunn 1972:129). Guidebooks delineate a world to experi-
ence, making some foreign places open, attractive and accessible,
while at the same time restricting and commodifying the extent,
and variability, of travelers' explorations.
Two guidebooks clearly dominated the texts referred to by trave-
lers, with 58% of respondents carrying the Lonely Planet series, most
commonly the Lonely Planet Indonesia Travel Survival Kit (Wheeler
1992), whilst Passport Sulawesi, Island Crossroads of Indonesia (Volkman
and Caldwell 1992) was the only other guidebook carried by 21% of
respondents. Respondents were particularly loyal to the Lonely Planet
series, regularly referring to it as ``the Bible'', with one traveler
claiming that it ``would be the last thing that I'd give away''.
Particular guidebooks have managed to escape the stigma travelers
associate with most tourist-oriented texts, clearly belonging to the
``good'' traveler world, rather than the ``bad'' tourist world. A con-
tent analysis of the Lonely Planet Indonesia Travel Survival Kit was car-
ried out to determine what appealing image of Tana Toraja was
constructed. Each line of the introductory section to Tana Toraja
was classi®ed according to the subject it was predominantly discuss-
ing. The information could be reduced to eight major categories:
the funeral ceremonies; traditional houses tongkonan (houses); grave
sites and tau-tau (ef®gies of the dead found near grave sites); his-

Figure 2. Categories of Guidebook Information (Derived from Wheeler

1992:802±808)
36 DYNAMIC TOURIST TEXTS

tory; religions; geography, including the meaning of the name Tana

Toraja and the spatial divisions of the various cultural groups; the
sport of the Torajans; and other information about modern life-
styles.
The majority of the information contained in the Lonely Planet
guidebook (Figure 2) con®rmed Silver's observation that guidebooks
and brochures depicting the developing world ``tend to portray pre-
dominantly what Westerners have historically imagined the Other
to be like . . . they exaggerate many of the distinctions that anthro-
pologists have made between industrialised societies and tribal cul-
tures'' (1993:303). About 63% of the information dealt with three
obviously ``exotic'' features of Tana Toraja; the funeral ceremonies,
the tongkonan, and the graves and tau-tau. In addition to this, there
are four photographs visually exposing travelers to exotic features
of Tana Toraja, two of the tau-tau, and two of the tongkonan. Of the
remaining information, 12% focuses on the history of the region,
dwelling on the violent wars of the past and accusations that
Torajans were once headhunters; 7% focuses on the religion of the
Torajans, emphasising the traditional religion Aluk to Dolo, claiming
that Christianity ``is only a veneer over traditional beliefs and cus-
toms'' (Wheeler 1992:804; contrast to Volkman 1984); another 7%
detailed the sports of the Torajans, featuring the more violent
sports like sisemba where ``the aim is to kick your opponent into sub-
mission'' (Wheeler 1992:807); 7% analysed the geographic distri-
bution of the Torajans; whilst just 4% was devoted to the more
docile, ``normal'' lifestyles of the Torajan people. The Lonely Planet
representation of Tana Toraja is of a place of incredible and unu-
sual architecture, peopled by an exotic tribe that has retained many
of its barbaric traditions through to the present day. Passport's
Sulawesi presented a similar image, concentrating predominantly
upon tongkonan, tau-tau, grave sites, funeral ceremonies, history and
geography, with 13% of its coverage concentrating upon the more
modern lifestyles of Torajans. It is interesting to note that this exo-
ticized image of Tana Toraja constructed in traveler-oriented texts
has the same main focal points as literature oriented to mass tour-
ists (Adams 1984).
These two guidebooks overwhelmingly dominated the texts trave-
lers referred to (a result of their resistance to the tourist bubble
and texts), and suggests that they arrive at Tana Toraja with a
fairly standardised image of what to expect. However, also in¯uen-
cing these images are the word-of-mouth descriptions that just over
50% of the travelers indicated in¯uenced their decision to visit Tana
Toraja. In order to gain insights into the quality of this information,
the sample group was asked how they would describe Tana Toraja
to someone who knew nothing about it. Almost every respondent
mentioned the ``beautiful'', ``spectacular'', or even ``breathtaking''
scenery, an aspect of Tana Toraja which was almost wholly omitted
from the introductory sections of the guidebooks. In addition to
this, they drew attention to the ``very interesting culture'', or ``lots
of culture'' of the Torajans. The ``culture'' they found interesting
 ANDREW MCGREGOR 37

was the ``fascinating weird rituals'' or ``funny habits'' of the

Torajans, particularly the funeral ceremonies, which were ``worth
seeing''. Most respondents described the tongkonan houses; approxi-
mately half mentioned the Torajans themselves in a brief, cursory
way, as ``friendly'' or ``nice''; and half were conscious of the extent
of tourism which ranged from ``very touristy'' and ``few too many
rich bloody tourists'', to ``not as touristy as I thought'' and
``unspoilt''. While there were additional points which were occasion-
ally mentioned and, as evidenced above in travelers descriptions of
the stage of tourism, variations in how each of these aspects of
Tana Toraja were described, the spoken descriptions were fairly
standardized, in that they nearly always revolved about the afore-
mentioned themes. Hence, their narratives served to reinforce
many of the predominant exotic cultural images contained within
the guidebook, but also provided additional information, primarily
being superlative descriptions of the physical landscape.

Experiencing Tana Toraja

The ®rst and most obvious relationship between texts and trave-
lers on location is the in¯uence the text has over where travelers go
and what travelers do within a destination. As discussed earlier,
they attempt to minimize the tourist bubble, and are thought to
minimize their reliance upon the industry: ``I hate being treated
like a tourist . . . souvenir shops are enough to make your stomach
turn''. Consequently the majority shunned local guides: the only
ones using guides were on a very tight time schedule and wanted to
see as much of the area as quickly as possible. The majority of the
guides offered similar itineraries, oscillating between the ``best''
examples of the main attractions of Tana Toraja, namely the tongko-
nan, tau-tau and grave sites, and would try to ®nd a funeral cer-
emony that was in the process of sacri®cing buffaloes, the more
buffaloes the better. Those who hired guides felt as though they
had ``done'' Tana Toraja by the conclusion of the tour, as evidenced
in the following query from a traveler who had just completed a
one-day tour with the author, ``Now you have seen everything. What
will you do for the rest of your time?''. Hiring a guide ensured that
they would see the exotic Tana Toraja they had come to see, but at
the same time restricted them to a rigidly de®ned tourism world.
Similarly many travelers shunned the locally-produced guidebooks
and tourism information centers in their attempts to distance them-
selves from ``tourists''. Those who did visit utilized their services pri-
marily to learn about the location and timing of current events,
such as the animal market or funeral ceremonies, which were rec-
ommended in their guidebooks. The centers, like the guides, would
strongly recommend that travelers visit the sacri®cial day of a fun-
eral ceremony, where up to one-hundred buffaloes could be killed,
rarely providing information about the ®rst or last days of funerals.
The power of this selected information is re¯ected in the fact that
none of the study group indicated that they had experienced the
38 DYNAMIC TOURIST TEXTS

``non-spectacular'', or perhaps ``non-tourist'' days of the funeral cer-

emonies.
The two main sources of information that travelers turned to
when they were in Tana Toraja were identical to the ones they used
when deciding to come to Tana Toraja, personal communication,
and their guidebooks. In restaurants and wismas (inexpensive home-
stay-style accommodations), travelers would exchange tales, giving
subjective accounts of the worthiness of various sites within Tana
Toraja, and providing valuable information regarding how to get to
various sites, prices, hotel rooms, and food. However, the sites they
discussed were predominantly those which were mentioned by the
major guidebooks. Their talk tended to reinforce guidebook sites
rather than introduce a stream of previously unknown locations into
other travelers' consciousness. Thus, it was the guidebooks that
exerted an inordinate amount of power over the their experiences.
Travelers predominantly restricted themselves to the 23 sites men-
tioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook (which were remarkably simi-
lar to the sites visited on guided tours). The only common exception
was the shifting location of the funeral ceremonies, where the
attraction remained the same but the site itself moved. A guide-
book-dominated, commodi®ed, Tana Torajan experience was cre-
ated, and a traveler world de®ned. By restricting themselves to the
guidebook locations the exotic image of Tana Toraja that had lured
them to the area could be realized, as the ancient culture and
beauty of Tana Toraja would be exposed (Figure 3). It is on this
text-delineated ``exotic'' experience upon which they base their per-
ceptions of place.
Despite literature indicating otherwise (Smith 1977), travelers
did not necessarily have much intercultural interaction, even though
they minimized their tourism bubbles. Particular alternative
insights into the ways-of-life of the local people were gained by con-
tracting the bubble, such as ``I never knew a car could hold twelve
people!'', but the only intercultural interactions that had signi®cant

Figure 3. Attractions at Guidebook Recommended Locations (Derived from

Wheeler 1992)
 ANDREW MCGREGOR 39

effects on their perceptions and experiences occurred between tra-

velers and tourism industry personnel, such as tour guides, home-
stay owners, and employees at the information centers. This trend
mirrors ®ndings Brewer observed when interviewing mass tourists:
``. . . most direct contacts between residents and tourists occur in
business contexts'' (1984:491) and ``Tourists look mostly at Indians,
but talk mostly to each other and to ladinos [ethnic middlemen in
Mexico]'' (Van den Berghe 1992). The travelers suggested two
reasons to explain this situation. The ®rst, and most common, was
that the local people did not speak English so there was little point
trying to communicate with them and, second, the local people
rarely approached them, which was unlike other areas of Indonesia.
This, in turn, reveals that travelers did not consider intercultural
activity other than business encounters an essential part of the tour-
ism experience, and there was no need for travelers to talk with
local people (outside of business matters). It was not a case of ``cul-
tural distancing'' (Laxson 1991) where local people would avoid
tourists by ignoring them or only giving monosyllabic replies, as the
Torajans always appeared friendly and ready to help travelers when-
ever they could. Many expressed a desire to communicate more
with the host community. But the experience afforded by limiting
external in¯uences to other travelers and guidebooks was obviously
considered authentic and enjoyable enough to render additional,
local communication and interaction, while desirable, ultimately un-
necessary for a ful®lling Tana Torajan experience.

Gazing upon Tana Toraja

The relationship between text and the experience was not limited
to the in¯uence of the former upon the activities travelers partici-
pated in when they were in Tana Toraja, but was also active in
shaping the way they gazed upon the Tana Torajan landscape.
Urry's theory on the gaze has not fully explored the role of text on
perception, instead emphasising the search for difference upon the
tourist gaze,
There is no single gaze as such. It varies by society, by social
group and by historical period. Such gazes are constructed
through difference . . . the gaze in any historical period is con-
structed in relationship to its opposite, to non-tourist forms of
social experience and consciousness. What makes a particular
tourist gaze depends on what it is contrasted with; what the forms
of the non-tourist experience happen to be (1990:1±2).
Whilst the search for difference is obviously integral to the entire
experience, in Tana Toraja it was found that the guidebook selects
what aspects of the destination will be focused upon as ``different'',
and to a certain extent, how travelers will gaze upon these ``differ-
ent'' sites. They gazed upon different sites in different ways,
depending upon the amount, and type, of prior information they
had been exposed to. Tana Toraja can be divided into four separate
realms, largely determined by the standardized information network
40 DYNAMIC TOURIST TEXTS

utilised by the travelers: the known, facets of Tana Toraja that they
have been visually exposed to through photographs and extensively
backed up by verbal or written means; the imagined, aspects they
are well aware of and anticipate through word-of-mouth or written
text but have not been visually exposed to; the unknown, the mun-
dane aspects of Tana Toraja that they are regularly exposed to
during their experiences but are not focused upon by the guide-
books; and the unseen, the aspects that are not mentioned nor seen
or experienced during their experience.

The Known. The two main attractions in Tana Toraja that ®t

this category are the tongkonan houses and the tau-tau. These attrac-
tions have three things in common: travelers have been visually
exposed to them through photographs in guidebooks prior to arri-
val, they are extensively written about in guidebooks, and they are
frequently mentioned by travelers when describing Tana Toraja to
others. The known are central points in the tourist world, with all
travelers having visited, or intending to visit, sites containing either
tongkonan or tau-tau. Good, easily accessible examples of both attrac-
tions are now signposted and a minimal charge applied, further
symbolizing their centrality to the experience.
When travelers were questioned about the known, it immediately
became apparent that they were rarely surprised when visiting
them. One respondent described the tongkonan as ``nothing new'',
referring to the fact that he had already seen photos of the houses.
Another stated that the tau-tau ``are the same as I saw in my guide-
book''. The travelers' expectations had been so well shaped by their
guidebooks that they were no longer surprised or astonished when
they ®nally arrived at these ``exotic'' sites. Viewing the known,
while an integral part of their trips, was not considered a fantastic
part of their experiences because, in a sense, they have already
done it. For one couple, pre-destination images made gazing upon
the tau-tau a ful®lling experience, not because of the tau-tau them-
selves, but because they were at the very spot that had been made
famous in their minds by countless previous exposures.
When gazing upon the known, the majority of travelers compared
it with the image they already had. For example, one traveler noted
the tau-tau were ``as expected but less sinister'', before explaining
that the guidebook photos she had seen made the tau-tau look extre-
mely evil. Others were critical of the corrugated iron roofs on top of
many of the tongkonan, comparing them to the photographs in guide-
books which had bamboo roofs. Similarly, nearly all the travelers
were aware that most of the original tau-tau had been stolen and
when they consequently gazed upon these attractions they mentally
tried to separate the old from the new. This gave rise to a traveler
complaining that the tau-tau looked ``mass produced''. If they had
not been informed that some of them had been stolen, they would
not have undergone this particular way of seeing; they may not
have looked for the guidebook-designated ``inauthentic'', and
instead admired the tau-tau as a whole.
 ANDREW MCGREGOR 41

In this context, the travelers saw the known in a negative light;

the tongkonan were generally described as beautiful, and the tau-tau
impressive and strange. Seeing the known satis®ed their expec-
tations but rarely exceeded them (see also Grif®ths 1997). Very few
considered the known to be highlights of their trip to Tana Toraja
despite providing a focus for their daily activities. The visual texts
resulted in a particular way of seeing; the known was not seen as a
whole in itself, but rather as an extension of a pre-conceived image.
This does not mean that all travelers see the same thing when they
gaze upon the known, but it does mean they do so in a similar way.
They gaze in a comparative way, comparing what they see with
what their texts had already pictured for them. Their texts not only
determine what will be constituted as the known, but also how they
gaze upon the known.

The Imagined. The imagined includes those aspects of Tana

Toraja that are mentioned extensively by the dominant information
network (personal communication and guidebooks) but have not
been revealed visually by photograph. Travelers have gleaned gen-
eral information about these features of Tana Toraja from the in-
formation network, but do not have adequate visual information,
which unlike the known, leaves them free to imagine what these
features will be like. The two features of Tana Toraja that ®t this
description, the funeral ceremonies and the beauty of the physical
landscape, cannot be adequately captured on a still camera.

Funeral Ceremonies. Travelers gazed upon the imagined with

eagerness and anticipation. Only one commented negatively on a
funeral ceremony, claiming it was ``nothing new'' as he had pre-
viously seen a ®lm on the Torajan funeral ceremonies. Thus, he had
visual exposure to the ceremonies prior to arrival, effectively elevat-
ing the ceremonies to the sphere of the known for this particular
person, and he correspondingly gazed upon the ceremonies without
surprise, in a comparative way. A much more common response was
that a funeral ``can't be described in a book'', and you have to be
there to ``see and smell it''. Anticipation was raised by pre-travel in-
formation, but their expectations were much less de®ned than in
the cases of the known, and more susceptible to positive change.
While they still did gaze, to a certain extent, in a comparative way,
their image was less rigid and their gaze less critical than the way
they viewed the known, and consequently the experience of gazing
upon the imagined was much more enjoyable. Some Swedish trave-
lers had expected the funerals to be more ``mystical'', an English
respondent had hoped for more ``exotic rituals'', and nearly all were
surprised by the cheerfulness of the deceased family. Very few
expected the funerals to be as they were, and consequently gazing
upon the funerals was a consistent highlight for the travelers, being
much more ful®lling and exciting than gazing upon the known.
The information network in¯uenced parts of the funeral cer-
emonies travelers gazed upon, and consequently their perceptions
42 DYNAMIC TOURIST TEXTS

of the funeral ceremony as a whole. Most saw only a few hours of

any ceremony, either the day of receiving guests, or the day of buf-
falo sacri®ce. One traveler who stayed a full day at a ceremony
whilst other tourists came and went, proudly stated, ``we saw every-
thing'' despite the fact the funeral ceremonies can last a week or
more. As travelers only saw the ``happy'' days of the funeral, as
opposed to the ®nal day that can contain much weeping and crying,
travelers commonly commented on the ``amazingly jovial people'',
and the ``very damn bloody'' aspects of the funeral ceremonies, a
perception that was entirely dependent upon the small section of
the funeral to which they were exposed. They gazed upon a prese-
lected part of the funeral ceremony that appealed to the exotic
image of Tana Toraja fostered by the guidebooks, and consequently
consistently ranked the ``exotic'' and ``bloody'' ceremonies a high-
light of their trips.

Scenery. Although guidebooks recommend some locations within

Tana Toraja because they have ``beautiful'' scenery, such consider-
ations did not warrant the same amount of overall attention within
the guidebooks as the tau-tau, tongkonan and funeral ceremonies of
the Torajans. Instead scenic information is conveyed to pre-arrival
travelers predominantly through word of mouth. As with the funeral
ceremonies most would not have been visually exposed to the var-
iety of sweeping views within Tana Toraja, and were consequently
imagining the landscape, basing their constructions on non-visual
information. To most it far surpassed their expectations and, along
with the funeral ceremonies, was constantly referred to as one of
the main highlights of their visit to Tana Toraja. The only travelers
who were not overly impressed by the landscape were those who
had visited regions of similar beauty. These travelers were more
likely to compare the two landscapes, thereby viewing the scenery in
the same comparative way they gaze at the known.
However, it would be misleading to suggest that the only reason
scenery was ranked as a highlight was because of pre-arrival infor-
mation; indeed many would not have heard about the scenery prior
to arrival given the non-standardized form of the communication.
What was standardised (to a certain extent), in a similar manner to
the funeral ceremonies, was what aspects of the countryside they
gazed upon. The guidebook directed them to places where they
could gaze upon extraordinary, magni®cent, and beautiful parts of
Tana Toraja, thereby heightening the likelihood that the scenery
will be a highlight for the travelers. Textual or spoken information
raised people's anticipation about the imagined either prior to, or
during their experiences, and the on-site information network di-
rected them to selected places where their imaginations could be re-
alised and expanded. The existence and type of non-visual textual
information encouraged a particular way of seeing, which allowed
the imagined to meet or surpass travelers' expectations.
 ANDREW MCGREGOR 43

The Unknown. There are aspects of Tana Toraja that travelers

become aware of during their stay, but are only brie¯y mentioned,
or totally omitted by texts. They are the parts of Tana Toraja that
comprise the remainder of the experience, ranging from the very
basic, such as food, accommodation, transport, shops, to local people
and their modern homes, to more exotic features such as the animal
market or cock®ghts. The unknown varies from person to person,
just as the known and the imagined varies for different people,
being dependent upon the individual's experience and textual ex-
posure. What separated the unknown from the imagined and the
known was the indifference associated with the way people gazed at
the unknown. Texts did not focus on the unknown and thus it was
rare to ®nd a traveler who actively gazed with interest upon the
unknown. Occasionally the unknown is not very different to the
home society of the tourist, con®rming Urry's (1990) assertion that
the gaze is structured by the search for difference, but at other
times the unknown can be vividly different to the Western society
most travelers originated from.
An example of an exotic feature of the unknown that was experi-
enced by the majority of the travelers but was gazed upon with little
interest is the animal market. The Lonely Planet guidebook limited
its description of the event to ``the buffalo and bolu (pig market) is
held every six days'' (Wheeler 1992:808). This brief description did
not instill much anticipation within the travelers, and whilst most
did end up visiting the markets, they did not look with the enthu-
siasm they gazed upon the imagined or the known. If, instead, the
guidebook had contained more information about the market, posi-
tioned it as a centerpiece of the Torajan economy and lifestyle,
making it a focal point of its construction of Tana Toraja, the mar-
ket might have entered the ``imaginary'' of the travelers, and hence
they would have gazed with more anticipation and interest. As it
was, the market, with its hundreds of animals and haggling dealers,
never featured in any of the highlights of Tana Toraja, because they
had not been tutored by text, or by previous spoken communication,
to gaze upon the market with anticipation or excitement.
Another feature of the unknown was local Torajan people. The
guidebooks write about the history of them, but mention little
about their present state, thereby subtly reinforcing the ``exotic-
ness'' of the Torajans by devoting their coverage to the funeral cer-
emonies, tau-tau and tongkonan. When travelers are with the
Torajans, they again gaze with little interest, knowledge or antici-
pation, and during their stay, gain few insights; hence the shallow
descriptions of the Torajans as ``happy'', ``mostly rice farmers'' and
having ``lots of children''. Due to the lack of intercultural inter-
action and guidebook information they tended to generalize: ``not so
different from other Indonesians'', ``like other Indonesians'' and
contrast, ``friendlier than the Javanese''. Often their perceptions
become based on a single encounter and are generalized to the
whole of Torajan society; thus, perceptions differed from ``everyone
wants your money'' and ``they are beginning to get sick of tourists''
44 DYNAMIC TOURIST TEXTS

to ``they leave you alone'' and ``they don't rip you off''. Despite
claims that ``people make the place'', the Torajans remained very
much on the rim of the gaze, the tourist world existing in a realm
constructed by the guidebooks that was, somewhat ironically consid-
ering the importance of ``authenticity'' to the experience, above and
beyond the normal, ``non-exotic'' world of the local people.

The Unseen. The unseen consists of the aspects of Tana Toraja

that travelers did not see or experience, and was not exposed in any
of the texts referred to. In other words, the unseen includes any-
thing travelers did not become aware of during the course of their
stay, and hence includes things as various as the domestic cooking
methods of the Torajans, to a rare animal species that may roam
the region, to the classrooms of the schoolchildren, and to the pri-
vate wedding ceremonies held by Torajans. They never searched for
the unseen and had little reason to think about these aspects, and
correspondingly they played no role in the tourist world of Tana
Toraja.

Reconstructing Tana Toraja

Travelers' texts shaped the way they gazed upon various features
of Tana Toraja. According to the amount of exposure different fea-

Figure 4. The Textual In¯uence Upon the Tourist Gaze

 ANDREW MCGREGOR 45

tures had been accorded within the text, and the form of that ex-
posure, people either gazed critically, comparatively, with interest
and anticipation, with complete disinterest, or did not view whole
segments of Tana Toraja. When constructing their perceptions, the
elements that were emphasised within speech or written texts domi-
nated their way of seeing. Because they were actively looking for
the known and the imagined, the whole of Tana Toraja was colored
by these features in people's post-travel images, ``[Tana Toraja is]
full of fascinating weird rituals, hanging graves, cave graves, death
and ceremonies. Beautiful countryside and houses''.
The perceptual spheres that dominated the gaze (Figure 4) were
so complete that their in¯uence extended into the way travelers
perceived and interpreted the ``unknown''. As they oscillated
between sites predominantly linked to the ``exotic'' death rituals of
the Torajans, and only gazed with interest at these sites (even the
tongkonan were associated with the dead, as houses where bodies
were stored), they associated death to things they knew little about.
For example, one traveler who surveyed the vibrant animal market
remarked ``All this for a funeral, man'', re¯ecting the power of the
known and the imagined upon his way of seeing. Likewise, when tra-
velers were pressed to make some comment about the local people,
the comment ``They live for their deaths'' was voiced repeatedly.
The known and the imagined resulted in perceptions that ``The fun-
eral is the most important thing in life'', ``They live for funerals'',
``The only reason to live is to die'' and, in particular, ``They live for
the killing of water buffaloes''. The text created an experience and
a gaze that pervaded travelers' perceptions of all aspects of Tana
Toraja, encouraging them to ®nd the exotic Other that originally
attracted them to the region.
It is important to emphasise at this point that the spheres and
processes described here re¯ect the general trends observed in
Tana Toraja, but at every stage there were exceptions. For example,
one traveler was invited into the home of a Torajan and this experi-
ence ended up being a highlight for her and changed the way she
interpreted the whole place. Similarly, one cited watching some
cock®ghts as a highlight of his experience, enjoying the thrill of bet-
ting as he does in his home country. Whilst exceptions on this scale
were rare, this is not to imply that those others who did not divert
from the norm would walk away from Tana Toraja with identical
impressions of the place. People may gaze in the same way, but this
is different from saying that people see the same things. For
example the majority of travelers gazed at the tau-tau with a critical
eye, because of the extensive visual and written exposure these
attractions received in their guidebooks; however, they did not
necessarily see the same things when they gazed in this way.
Despite being a consistent critical focus of their gaze, the tau-tau
were described as anything from ``brilliant'', ``beautiful'', and ``most
impressive'' to ``mass produced'', ``strange'', and ``shitty''. In ad-
dition, what constitutes the imagined and the known can differ
from traveler to traveler depending upon the non-standardized
46 DYNAMIC TOURIST TEXTS

forms of communication, such as word of mouth. If one who con-

sidered cock®ghting to be a major highlight of his experiences
spoke at length to another traveler about the cock®ghts, the cock-
®ghts could enter the realm of the imagined for the second traveler,
as they would be actively anticipating them and seeking the experi-
ence. However, because of the standardisation of experience and
gaze, resulting from an over-dependence on a limited number of
texts, travelers rarely wavered from the personally ful®lling experi-
ences and ways of seeing that have been described in this paper.

CONCLUSION
Texts are not simply markers of a culture. They are also dynamic
objects which have a massive amount of power over how an individ-
ual, or a whole culture, comes to see the world. In the case of texts
in Tana Toraja, they not only de®ned a particular world or ``trail''
(Connell, forthcoming) for travelers to follow, they were also active
in shaping the way in which they gaze upon features within the des-
tination. The texts provide ``a framework for experiencing a place''
(Lew 1991:126) that con®rm Western conceptions of an exotic
Other; but, ironically, by standardizing the gaze, ``the Guide
becomes . . . the very opposite of what it advertises, an agent of
blindness'' (Barthes 1986:76). Travelers are not the roaming,
romantic free agents they are often portrayed as in academic litera-
ture, but a subgroup of tourists whose experience and gaze is heav-
ily structured by a restricted number of non-stigmatized, traveler-
friendly texts. Their quest for authenticity did not lead to intercul-
tural interaction because ``authenticity'' did not include the auth-
entic modern lifestyles of the Torajans. Instead they pursued a
romantic, primitive ``authenticity'', the exotic Other of the Western
imagination, which could best be found through adherence to the
experiences and gazes induced by their guidebooks.
Travelers in Tana Toraja were ``tutored'' by texts to gaze and ex-
perience their destination in a particular way, that they generally
found both authentic and enjoyable. However, this does not mean
that perceptions of places or people can be deduced purely from
studying printed texts. A focal point of travelers' constructions of
Tana Toraja, the scenery, could have been omitted from any tex-
tually-based study that attempted to explain how they ``would'' see
Tana Toraja, as it commanded little attention in formal texts.
Informal modes, in this case word-of-mouth communication among
travelers, act in conjunction with formal texts, to in¯uence how they
come to see the world around them. Similarly a purely textual study
could not have foreseen how such information resulted in particular
ways of gazing upon, and reconstructing facets within Tana Toraja.
The gaze was not structured simply by difference, but by instruction
and anticipation, with the form of the instruction (visual, written,
or spoken), creating a particular type of interest and participation.
Further, just as texts are not static objects, nor are people.
Travelers' textually in¯uenced ways of seeing resulted in particular
 ANDREW MCGREGOR 47

perceptions of Tana Toraja being formed, views that are removed

from any explicit reference. The centrality of death rituals to the
gaze as opposed to the marginality of the local people, led to
``death'' being associated with the Torajan people, explaining the
oft-repeated observation that Torajans ``live for their deaths''.
This study has con®rmed that texts provide lenses for viewing the
world. In a destination where the in¯uence of texts upon travelers
was initially expected to be minimized, their reliance upon a limited
number of texts led to largely commodi®ed exposures. The dynamic
properties of guidebooks comprised a form of social control (Dann
1996) dominating travelers' experiences and gazes. Travelers sought
a type of ``authentic exotic'' rather than merely the authentic
(which may be mundane), or an inauthentic exotic, and they placed
their trust in their guidebooks to mark out a particular version of
this authentic exotic world. However, Tana Toraja is a particular
type of destination, one which attracts considerable coverage in
texts and possesses well established tourist sites, it would be inter-
esting to investigate whether the ®ndings and perceptual model pro-
posed here (Figure 4) are mimicked in other less textually-exposed
places. The ®eld of tourism and indeed many other textually-
oriented ®elds could bene®t greatly from a greater interest in and
recognition of the dynamic properties of texts. While this study con-
®rmed many of the suspicions of purely textual analysts, in that
people saw Tana Toraja through the lens of the text (Bruner
1991:240), for a fuller understanding of place, space, and meaning,
this medium must be recognized as a dynamic force, the full cul-
tural effects of which can only be found in the imaginations of the
consumers. The way is open for cultural and tourism researchers to
advance textual studies by examining their effects on cultures,
rather than the effects of cultures on texts.&
Acknowledgments ÐThe author thanks all the nameless travelers who participated in
this research, the Torajans for their kindness and hospitality, John Connell for his
constant guidance, and John Roberts and Peter Johnson for their cartographic as-
sistance.

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Submitted 16 March 1998. Resubmitted 21 August 1998. Accepted 9 September 1998. Final
version 23 December 1998. Refereed anonymously. Coordinating Editor: Geoffrey Wall