These are the traditional Toraja / Toraya houses. We start to see them before we get to the Toraja region in South Sulawesi. Lots of Toraya have businesses in other regions so there you see a normal house and the rice barn / lumbang in front of it.

The lumbang are right out the front of the house against the road. Even in front of normal modern houses. There will be a row rice barns side by side for different families.

Once we get to Toraja we see the big house, tongkonan, and its mini-me lumbang rice barn in front.

Do the mice eat the rice? “No they can’t, the poles made out of wood that is slippery and now made out of concrete .”

What if someone steals it? “They won’t. Orang Toraya won’t do this. People from big cities but not Toraya. They can’t do this..”

We saw several new ones under construction.