full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Kelli Swazey: Life that doesn't end with death

Unscramble the Blue Letters

In my husband's homeland in the highlands of Sulawesi island in eastern iodnneisa, there is a community of people that experience death not as a singular eenvt but as a gradual social process. In Tana Toraja, the most important social moments in people's lives, the focal points of social and cultural iraiotctnen are not weddings or births or even family dinners, but funerals. So these funerals are characterized by elaborate rituals that tie people in a system of reciprocal debt bsaed on the aounmt of animals — pigs, chickens and, most iapotlrnmty, water buffalo — that are sacrificed and distributed in the name of the deceased. So this cultural clmopex surrounding death, the ritual enactment of the end of life, has made death the most vliisbe and remarkable aspcet of Toraja's landscape. liatnsg anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, funeral ceremonies are a raucous affair, where commemorating someone who's died is not so much a private sseands but more of a piublcly shared transition. And it's a transition that's just as much about the identity of the living as it is about remembrance of the dead.

Open Cloze

In my husband's homeland in the highlands of Sulawesi island in eastern _________, there is a community of people that experience death not as a singular _____ but as a gradual social process. In Tana Toraja, the most important social moments in people's lives, the focal points of social and cultural ___________ are not weddings or births or even family dinners, but funerals. So these funerals are characterized by elaborate rituals that tie people in a system of reciprocal debt _____ on the ______ of animals — pigs, chickens and, most ___________, water buffalo — that are sacrificed and distributed in the name of the deceased. So this cultural _______ surrounding death, the ritual enactment of the end of life, has made death the most _______ and remarkable ______ of Toraja's landscape. _______ anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, funeral ceremonies are a raucous affair, where commemorating someone who's died is not so much a private _______ but more of a ________ shared transition. And it's a transition that's just as much about the identity of the living as it is about remembrance of the dead.

Solution

  1. visible
  2. lasting
  3. sadness
  4. complex
  5. publicly
  6. event
  7. aspect
  8. interaction
  9. amount
  10. indonesia
  11. based
  12. importantly

Original Text

In my husband's homeland in the highlands of Sulawesi island in eastern Indonesia, there is a community of people that experience death not as a singular event but as a gradual social process. In Tana Toraja, the most important social moments in people's lives, the focal points of social and cultural interaction are not weddings or births or even family dinners, but funerals. So these funerals are characterized by elaborate rituals that tie people in a system of reciprocal debt based on the amount of animals — pigs, chickens and, most importantly, water buffalo — that are sacrificed and distributed in the name of the deceased. So this cultural complex surrounding death, the ritual enactment of the end of life, has made death the most visible and remarkable aspect of Toraja's landscape. Lasting anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, funeral ceremonies are a raucous affair, where commemorating someone who's died is not so much a private sadness but more of a publicly shared transition. And it's a transition that's just as much about the identity of the living as it is about remembrance of the dead.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
funeral ceremony 3
experience death 2
social process 2
life cycle 2
greater human 2
prolong life 2

Important Words

  1. affair
  2. amount
  3. animals
  4. aspect
  5. based
  6. births
  7. buffalo
  8. ceremonies
  9. characterized
  10. chickens
  11. commemorating
  12. community
  13. complex
  14. cultural
  15. days
  16. dead
  17. death
  18. debt
  19. deceased
  20. died
  21. dinners
  22. distributed
  23. eastern
  24. elaborate
  25. enactment
  26. event
  27. experience
  28. family
  29. focal
  30. funeral
  31. funerals
  32. gradual
  33. highlands
  34. homeland
  35. identity
  36. important
  37. importantly
  38. indonesia
  39. interaction
  40. island
  41. landscape
  42. lasting
  43. life
  44. lives
  45. living
  46. moments
  47. people
  48. pigs
  49. points
  50. private
  51. process
  52. publicly
  53. raucous
  54. reciprocal
  55. remarkable
  56. remembrance
  57. ritual
  58. rituals
  59. sacrificed
  60. sadness
  61. shared
  62. singular
  63. social
  64. sulawesi
  65. surrounding
  66. system
  67. tana
  68. tie
  69. toraja
  70. transition
  71. visible
  72. water
  73. weddings
  74. weeks