A specialist (pande tau-tau) fashions the effigy out of nangka-wood. Certain individuals have won fame in the making of these dolls; the carving supplies them with supplementary income. Well-known pande are Teken in Kesu' and Pong Salapu in Sangalla'. Today, resemblance to the deceased is the specialist's goal. Nowadays, since some tau-tau craftsmen, Teken, or Olle, have had training in sculpture on Bali, increasing verisimilitude is being achieved but, it seems to me, at the cost of something of the fascination and mystery characteristic of early death dolls.

Manufacture of the tau-tau is accompanied by offerings. Tau-tau have the genitals of whichever sex which they represent. The dolls have movable limbs so that, for example, even the forearm and upperarm can be detached from each other. The head, too, can be removed. Old effigies found in the vicinity of ancient coffins, do not have movable limbs.

The tau-tau are clothed exactly like a toraja of status - in an early phase of the ritual, in simple garments, but in grand apparel when he is carried to the slaughtering place of the kerbau.

 Source: Batusura.de