The Merok Feast of the Sa’Dan Toradja

I wish, first, to express my gratitude to the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde, which has kindly arranged for this book to be printed. I am also indebted to the Gereformeerde Zendingsbond in de Neder­ lands Hervormde Kerk and the Nederlandsch Bijbelgenootschap for the financial aid they have given. Furthermore I would like to thank particularly Jeune Scott-Kemball for the conscientious manner, in which she has translated this paper and the pains she has taken to translate into excellent English my Dutch rendering of the difficult language of the Texts. The spelling used for the South Toradja text is that of present-day Bahasa Indonesia with the following exceptions: the glottal check, found in South Toradja only as a syllable-or word-final, is not written as k but indicated by an apostrophe, for example, untaku' not untakuk; and the velar nasal, because it is sometimes protracted in speech and must then be duplicated in writing, is not written ng but f}, for example, la13i' not langi'; tary13a not tangnga. The spelling of South Toradja words in the translation and notes differs from this system in two respects: y is used instead of j, for example, kayu = kaju (text); o-e instead of oe, for example, Lo-erara' (trans.) = Loerara' (text). The hyphen is used only to make it clear that each vowel must be pronounced.