THE TOBA BATAK, FORMERLY AND NOW
I
i
Dr. J. Keuning
(translated by Claire Holt)
TRANSLATION SERIES
MODERN INDONESIA PROJECT
Southeast Asia Program
Department of Far Eastern Studies
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
Price—$1.00

Do not remove from Room 213,
640 Stewart AvenueTHE TOBA BATAK, FORMERLY AND NOW
Dr. J. Keuning
(translated by Claire Holt)
TRANSLATION SERIES
Modern Indonesia Project
Southeast Asia Program
Department of Far Eastern Studies
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
1958©	1958 by Cornell Modern Indonesia Project
4Ill
PREFACE
Undoubtedly one of the most useful surveys of the-
social and political organization of the Toba Bataks is
Dr. J. Keuning's article which appeared in the September
1952 issue of the Dutch scholarly journal Indonesie.
The Cornell Modern Indonesia Project is happy to have
an opportunity to make this important article avail-
able in English translation through its Translation
Series. We wish to express our gratitude to Dr.
Keuning and the editors of Indonesie for their permis-
sion to publish it. We are particularly grateful to
Dr. Keuning for his willingness to provide elucidations
and bibliography and for checking the translation and
glossary with such care.
To Claire Holt we wish to express our thanks for
her excellent translation. Having herself visited
the Toba Batak area both before and after the w^r in
conjunction with her own research, she is particularly
well qualified to do this. Mrs. Holt is at present a
Visiting Professor in Cornell University’s Southeast
Asia Program.
March 25, 1958
Ithaca, New York
George McT. Kahirt
DirectorV
PREFACE OF THE TRANSLATOR
While working on my own research materials related to the,,
regions of Lake Toba, which I first visited in 1938 and revisited
in 1956, I came across this article of Dr, J. Keuning and immed-
iately felt regretful that it is accessible to so few students—
at Cornell University and elsewhere. Though the necessity of
mastering the Dutch language for studies connected with Indo-
nesia's past is increasingly being realized—everywhere--it is a
long process. By bits and pieces, a fraction of the many excel-
ent scholarly works originally written in Dutch appear in English
translations. I found Dr. Keuning's lecture to contain a very
clear statement illuminating simultaneously important historical,
sociological and political facets of Toba Batak society. It
provides a good preliminary orientation for students wishing to
go deeper into the subject, and a concise survey for those who
may, never be able to do so.
The author’s statements are based on extensive study and
first-hand experience. Born in 1911, Dr. Keuning studied
Indology at Leiden University between 1929 and 1935 with a vjjew
toward future civil service in Indonesia. His doctoral thesis
dealt with Batak adat-law.* The years between 1935 and 1942
he spent as administrative officer (controleur) in the Batak
lands with headquarters, at different times, Γη Sibolga,
Balige and Siborong-borong. For one year and a half he acted
as chairman of the highest courts for criminal and civil casds
adjudged principally according to Toba Batak customary law. He
was interned by the Japanese from 1942 to 1945, returned to the
Netherlands on sick leave in 1946 and was later prevented from
returning to Indonesia for medical reasons. Since 1948, he has
been active at the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde at Leiden, where
he is at present Conservator of the Indonesian division. Among
Dr. Keuning’s publications, there are other articles dealing
with Toba Batak society and its political and social structure.
C. H.
* Verwantschapsrecht en Volksordening, Huwelijksrecht en Erfrecht
in het Koeria^gebied van Tapanoeli. Thesis, 1948. (Kinship Law
and Social Organization, Marriage and Inheritance Law in the
Kuria territory of Tapanuli.)	“vii
	GLOSSARY
Abbreviations: (B) (D) (G) CD (J)	Batak language Dutch German Indonesian Javanese
adat (I)	: custom; customary law; tradition; traditional rules
adat pasisir (I)	: adat of the coastal region, especially north and south of Sibolga
ama (B)	: father
ambtenaar ter beschikking (D)	: lit. "official at the disposal" (of a higher authority)—aide
anak (I,B)	: child
anak boru (B)	: see boru
anggi (B)	: younger brother
Badan Pekerdja (I)	: lit. "working body”—work committee
boru (B)	: lit. daughter(s); also short for anak boru—designation of the patri-lineage into which the women of a patrilineal group marry
bupati (I)	: regent
controleur (D)	: lit. comptroller, inspector; title of a Dutch administrative officer in the Netherlands-Indian civil service, in charge of a large district.
demang (I)	: title of a head of a district
Dewan Negeri (J)	: Council of an administrative terri- torial unit constituted as a "negeri"- lit. land, stateVlll
Dewan Perwakilan Rakjat
Daerah Kebupaten Tapanuli Utara (I)	: Council of People's Representatives of the Regency North Tapanuli
djaihutan (B)	: head of a territorial unit called hundulan (abbr. of radja ihutan)
haha (B)	: elder brother
hamadjuon (B)	: progress
Hatopan (B) Christen Batak	: Union of Batak Christians; before the last war a small but active group of dissenters from the Batak Church
Hollands-Inlandse School (D)	: Netherlands-Indigenous School, a seven- year elementary school with Dutch as language of instruction
hula-hula (B)	: the patri-lineage whence a patrilineal group gets its daughters-in-law
hundulan (B)	: small administrative territorial unit composed of several village-complexes
Huria (B) Kristen Indonesia	: Congregation of Indonesian Christians
huta (B)	: village, hamlet
Huta Dame (B)	: Village of Peace
kampong (I)	: lit. village; vicinity; settlement; a small complex of huta in the Batak regions instituted by the Netherlands- Indian Administration
kepala negeri (I)	: head of a negeri
ketjamatan (I)	: an administrative sub-division of a district
kuria (I)	: the smallest statutory community in the southern regions of Tapanuli, the equi- valent of negeri in Toba Batak regions
Lontung (B)	: name of one of the two legendary sons of the first Batak man, after whom a Toba Batak moeity is named
marga (B)	: an exogamous patrilineal group—sib, clanIX
marga radja (B)	: lit. chief marga--a p'atri- lineal group established in a region in the distant past and with special rights on land; also the marga of chiefs, i.e. traditionally chiefs had to be members of a marga radja
MULO (D)	: abbreviation for Meer Uitgebreid Lager Onderwij s —(more advanced elementary education)—a junior high school of occidental pattern in prewar Indonesia
negeri (I)	: 1. land, state; capital city 2. smallest statutory community in Batak regions
OSVIA (D)	: abbreviation of a name of a school for Indonesian civil administrators before the war--Opleidings School voor Inlandsche Ambtenaren
parboru (B)	: father and other close relations of the bride
pasar (I)	: market
pauseang (B)	: designation of a ricefield given by a father to his daughter at marriage or a few years thereafter
piso (I,B)	: knife or sword; general designation of gifts from the boru to its hula-hula relations
radja huta (B)	: village chief
radja ihutan (B)	: title of a chief of a hundulan
radja padua (B)	: title of a chief of a sub-division of a hundulan
rapat (I)	: lit. council, also designation for a court of justice
rapat adat (I)	: adat council, i.e. council of elders and dignitaries on questions of customary law
Rheinische Mission (G)	: name of a German mission—the Rhenish Mission, with^headquarters at Wuppertal- Barmen near Dusseldorf
sahala haradjaon (B)	: attributes or qualities of chieftain- shipX
sawah (I)	irrigated rice field
si (B)	prefix to personal names--the, the one
singa (B)	(from Sanskrit singha—lion) designation for stylized, carved heads of a monstrous creature—a traditional, protective orn- ament of Toba Batak stuctures
sintua (B)	lit. elder; title of an auxiliary functionary in a Christian Batak con- gregation
Si Radja Batak	: name of the mythological progenitor of all Toba Batak
Sumba	: (see Lontung)
tjamat (I)	: head of a ketjamatan (sub-division of a district)
toko (I)	: shop
ubi (I)	: general designation for yams
ulos (B)	: woven cloth: also general designation of gifts from the hula-hula to the boru
wedana (J)	: title of a head of a district1
THE TOBA BATAK, FORMERLY AND NOW*
by Dr. J. Keuning
The aim of this article is first to provide in broad out-
line some insight into the social factors that play a decisive
role in the social order of the Toba Batak; then to impart some-
thing about this society as it appeared shortly before its
contact with the West—i.e. in the first half of the nineteenth
century; and, finally to discuss a few significant facts and
changes that resulted from the breakdown of its self-imposed
isolation. The beginnings of this break may be placed around
1860. when the Rheinische Mission chose the Toba Batak area as
a field for its missionary activities.
For the readers of this journal a brief sketch will suffice
concerning the nature of the territory inhabited by the Toba
Batak and their means of subsistence.
From a purely geographical viewpoint, the region falls into
four distinct parts:
1.	Lake Toba, about 2,950 feet above sea level, with the
island Samosir—populated by some 100,000 people—in it,
and the areas along the lake’s eastern and southern
shores, densely populated and fertile, with a favorable,
even climate due to the levelling effects of the large
surface of water;
2.	the sawah (irrigated rice field) plain of Silindung, some
25 miles to the south, similarly elevated to 2,950 feet,but
much warmer during the day and considerably cooler at
night-time;
3.	the barren highlands of Toba between them—truly a steppe
region trencbed by ravines, cold and bleak in the rainy
season—a region where the inhabitants must wrench their
meagre harvest from an unwilling soil; and finally
4.	the real mountain-terrain which includes Habinsaran—
literally, "t)ie place where the sun rises’’—and the area
between the interior and the coast of the Indian Ocean,
the heart of the Bukit Barisan mountains, often covered
with jungle, where the Toba Batak have built their
small sawah in the narrow valleys, and where the chronic
deficiency of rice is made up for by the cultivation of
ubi.
* This article is based on a lecture given on December 13, 1951, at
the Rijksmuseun voor Volkenkunde in Leiden. It was first publish
ed in Dutch in Indfrnesie, VI, No. 2, September 1952, The Hague.2
Agriculture is and was the principal means of subsistence
in the whole Toba Batak region. Wet rice cultivation is highly
developed in Toba and Si lindung,, where long and well-maintained
irrigation ditches have been known for centuries. There is
also wet rice cultivation on the Highlands and in Habinsaran,—
barely possible considering the nature of the ground—in addi-
tion to maize and varieties of ubi. In recent years the
cultivation of vegetables, especially^ of cabbage and onions,
has been successfully undertaken in Samosir and in the Highlands.
The Toba Batak live in small villages with no more than
some ten family-houses—villages mostly surrounded by a high
earthen wall overgrown by adjacent bamboo stools, a micro-world
in itself. In the last decades a few little towns have develop-
ed—centers of trade and communication and of weekly markets
visited by thousands of men and women. In order of importance
the principal centers are: Tarutung, Balige, Siborong»-borong
Porsea, Dolok Sanggul and Pangururan on Samosir.
The Toba Batak as a group, counting some 500,000 members, '
are located in the middle of other Batak groupings. To the
north and northwest their neighbors are the Karo-, Simelungun-,
and Dairi- or Pakpak Batak; in the east their territory borders
on the Malay coastal area of Sumatra; while to the south of the
central Batak-land live the Angkola and Mandailing Batak groups.
As for the coastal area on the Indian Ocean, a gradual infiltra-
tion of other ethnic elements had taken place there in the course
of time. Besides the Batak, we find there—especially in the
harbor-towns of Sibolga and Barus, but elsewhere too—many
Minangkabau, Achehnese, Niha /people from the island Nias/ and
also Chinese. Out of the long, daily association of these
groups with each other, a mixed culture has developed, the so-
called adat pasisir /custom of the coastal region/, with charac-
ter istics of its" own/ especially in the sphere oT marriage and
inheritance rights.
From a cultural viewpoint all the above mentioned Batak
groups can be regarded as subdivisions of one people, the Batak
people, counting some 1 to lj million souls. They speak one
language, their myths and traditions point to a common origin,
their social organization with its varied forms of expression
is basically the same.
Even though each Batak group speaks its own dialect, which
at first contact is oftentimes mutually unintelligible, the
vocabulary, sentence-structure and script of these dialects
show so many similarities that no doubt can be entertained that
we deal here with one language. This view, as far as I know, is
accepted among linguists without exception. Further proof from
practical life is the fact that a Toba Batak, for example, ca,n
acquire fluency in another Batak dialect without much trouble
and effort and the same is true of members of the other Batak
groups.3
All Batak consider the Toba Batak territory as their dradle,
the land of their origin. Here, according to a Toba Batak ver-
sion of the myth of origin, Si Boru Deak Parudjar, daughter of one
of the gods, descended from heaven and, after a victorious battle
with the serpent Naga Padoha, shaped the earth out of a lump she
brought with her. Thereafter she married the son of a god who
found her in the first Batak vi.llage-.-Si Andjur Mula-Mula, sit-
uated on the slope of the holy mountain Pusuk Buhit at the west-
ern side of Lake Toba. From this union the first Batak was
born—Si Radja Batak, the progenitor of all Batak.
From Si Andjur Mula-Mula the Batak ancestors spread into
adjacent Samosir and from there further and ever further over
the whole Batak land. The vicissitudes of these ancestors are
related in an extensive cycle of stories. While stories about
the progressive occupation of new territories in the distant
past are wholly legendary, some historical truth can be discerned
in those dealing with later centuries. On the basis of these
stories and the situation today, this spread of the Batak was
recorded and mapped by the Batak civil officer and expert on
adat, Waldemar Huta Galung in his Pustaha taringot tu tarombo
hi bangso Batak*; by the late resident, Ypes,** *** in his valuable
book on the social organization and land rights of the Toba
Batak; and by the eminent /scholar/ Vergouwen, in his admirable
work, Het Rechtsleven der Toba Bafaks.* * *
Thus, implied is a consciousness of unity which must have
prevailed in an earlier period among the Batak groups even
though mutual contacts may not have been particularly frequent.
This feeling of unity was strongly undermined by the course of
history in the past century when the Angkola-Batak and the
Mandailing group embraced Islam; when the Toba Batak were sub-
jected to the influence of Christianity; and the Karo- and
Simelungun Batak were administratively incorporated into the
residency of Sumatra-East-Coast and were not integrated with
other Batak groups in the residency Tapanuli. It was especial-
ly the differentiation in religion that brought about such,
strong antagonism between North- and South-Tapanuli, between
the Toba Batak and the Mandailing, that the latter initiated,
after 1920, a campaign: they no longer wished to be regarded
/jBopk Concerning the Origin and Genealogy of the Batak People/.
Zendingsdrukkery, Laguboti /Sumatra/ 1926.	~
**	/W. K. H. Ypes, Bijdrage tot de kennis .van de stamverwantschap,
de inheemsche rechtsgemeenschappen en het grondenrecht der
Toba en Dairi-Bataks (Contribution to the Study of the Kinship
System, Indigenous Autonomous Communities and the Land-rights
of the Toba and Dairi-Batak), The Hague, 1932./
*** /J. C. Vergouwen, Judicial Life of the Toba Batak, The Hague,
—1933^/	——-----------------------------4
as Batak but wanted recognition as a separate group. It seems
that after the war the relations between the Mandailing and the
Toba Batak improved.
Finally, it is not difficult to demonstrate that the social
structure of all Batak groups rests on a common base. The pat-
rilineal kinship system is dominant everywhere; all Batak know
the marga as an exogamous patrilineal clan; they know the asym-
metrical connubium as the marriage form; they have territorial
bonds which disclose the same structure; and their adat—
customary law—reverts in essence to the same basic conceptions.
In Toba Batak society--to which from now on we will wholly
limit our discussion—the kinship system with its interwoven
bonds of affinal relationships was and is of primary importance.
The genealogical principle of this society, with its unilateral
patrilineal form and the asymmetrical connubium that links the
patri-lineages to each other, commands our attention in the first
place. Other factors—such as common location in one territory,
common interest in secular and sacred affairs—in most cases are
the direct outgrowth of the bonds of kinship by blood or ties
through intermarriage.
People live together in smaller or larger patrilineal groups
each having its own function and significance in the social
order. Of greatest importance, next to the family, is the minor
lineage that consists, for example, of descendants of one great-
grandfather or one great-great-grandfather. To define the idea,
we may state that this is a group of people who live together in
one village or in a few neighboring villages, who have close
daily contact with each other, who help each other when necessary,
who share in one another’s joys and sorrows, and who take a
common stand against undesirable intervention from outside. A-
bove this minor group there is the major lineage whose unity is
based on common patrilineal descent from one ancestor who lived
some six to ten generations ago. Such a major lineage inhabits
one region with a few dozen villages which have all issued from
one common mother-village. These people, too, know each other,
meet regularly at festive meals occasioned by a marriage or
a death; their rice fields lie interspersed with each other and
are irrigated out of communally built and maintained conduits.
In times past they used to assemble after the harvest for reli-
gious celebration, to thank the gods and the ancestors for the
crops with a sacrificial animal and to pray for welfare in the
time ahead.
One meets with all kinds of gradations here—the lineages
overlap and it depends sometimes on special circumstances as
to which group appears strongest as a unit. Also personal
factors in leadership often play a temporary role therein.5
Above this major lineage we encounter the marga, the gr$at
patrilineal group /or sib/ which according to tradition stems
from one ancestor who lived at-the dawn of memory—the marga
that gives the individual Batak his surname. One man may be
called Siahaan, another Situmorang, Pardede, Napitupulu, or
Huta Galung and so on. There are scores of marga—there are some
that consist of thousands of members. At times a marga inhabits
contiguous territory, but often a marga is spread over a number
of separated areas. It is possible, however, in most cases to
determine by someone's marga name from which region he, or
his father, or grandfather, originated.
Today the significance of the marga rests mainly on the
rule of exogamy; otherwise it is too large to come into the
forefront of social life.
Marriage or sexual intercourse between a man and a woman
of the same marga is regarded asfincest, the supreme trans-
gression that in former times was punishable by death. Even in
modern times its occurrence is exceedingly rare, and such an^ex-
ceptional case then causes heavy social repercussions.
Above the marga we further find the "great marga*’ or "head
marga,"*composed along traditional patrilineal lines of a group
of marga, and, finally, above this greater unit there are the two
moieties into which the Toba Batak people are divided: Sumba
and Lontung, whose origin are the two sons of Si Radja Batak.
To gain a visual image of this society's structure, it is
best to visualize a tree which forks close to the ground into
two heavy branches—Sumba and Lontung. Each of these main
branches has a number of lateral limbs—the head-marga such as
Si Bagot ni Pohan, Sipaettua, Guru Mangaloksa, Radja Mangarerak,
etc. Each of these limbs has further branches—the marga and
every one of these has twigs and sprouts: the major and minor
lineages.
This patrilineal kinship system is reflected; as elsewhere,
in the kinship terminology which is classificatory. To give
only a few examples—a Batak calls all persons of his own
generation in his marga either haha or anggi, older or younger
brother; his ama is not only his father but also all other men
of his marga of the latter's generation; and he calls all per-
sons who in his marga are genealogically on the same generational
level with his sons, his anak /children/. This does not imply,
however, that he regards all hTs relations in the same manner
or treats them alike. He differentiates substantially between
his own father and his uncles—brothers, cousins and cousins-once
removed of his father; or between his own brothers and those
persons whom we would call cousins, or cousins once or twice
removed, provided we keep in mind only agnate cousins.
Within the minor lineage, a group descended for instance
from one great-grandfather, a very real sense of solidarity
exists, a true feeling of blood-ties. This sense weakens as
* /See footnote on p. 22./6
the common ancestor of the persons concerned is more remote;
but it reappears among fellow-marga-members, able to establish
their iftutual relationship only after long conjectures and cal-
culations, when they happen to meet outside their own familiar
environment. They are also certain to be helpful to each other
under these circumstances.
It is self-evident that in this society the worship of
ancestors was the all-important, though not the only, facet of
religious life.
As already mentioned earlier, asymmetrical connubium is
practiced in this patrilineally ordered society—a system of
unilateral marital relationships between lineages, with due
consideration, of course, to marga exogamy. The maidens of
lineage A of marga I marry young, men of lineage B of marge II;
the maidens of lineage B become .the brides of men of lineage C
of marga III, etc. Th,e stress is intentionally upon the lineage
and not on the marga. It was surmised that these unilateral
marriage relationships should have run aground between the marga
as a whole. Girls of marga I to iaa,rga II, from marga II to
marga III, from III to IV, etc., so that, in theory, one gets
a closed system of marital interrelationships involving all
Batak marga.
Whether this perhaps was the,case in the past, when the
Batak, much fewer in number, lived within a much smaller area,
or whether Sumba and Lontung were at that time exogamous
moieties, may become an interesting subject for theoretical
speculations. For an understanding of the present state of
affairs it is of less importance.
It is thus—and must have been so for centuries—that uni-
lateral marriage relationships link primarily patri-lineages; it
is quite possible that a man of the marga Siahaan is married to
a woman of the marga Napitupulu and vice versa, a man of
Napitupulu with a woman of Siahaan, provided that the lineages
concerned lie sufficiently far apart in the genealogical tree
of the marga.
In this asymmetrical connubium—wherein, concomitantly, a
preferred form is marriage with a mother’s-brother’s daughter,
in a limited classificatory sense, and marriage with a father's-
sister's daughter is obviously strictly forbidden--we always
have to deal with a tri-partite relationship between three
patri-lineages. On the one side is the hula-hula, the group
whence the wives of a given patri-lineage originate; on the other,
the boru, the group into which the girls of that lineage marry.
This however is only theoretical. In practice each lineage has
more than one hula-hula and more than one boru because in the
course of years new intermarriage relations are initiated with
other lineages. This happens despite a certain preference for
strengthening already existing affinal ties through further
marriages between members of the youngest generation of the same7
pair of lineages, who then can continue building upon prior
bonds. In years past this was the customary pattern, more than
at the present when improved means of communication and the
greater mobility of Batak society offer much greater opportun-
ities for contacts.
According to now Obsolete terminology, a Batak marriage
is jone of bride-price and is often described in older literature
as bride-purchase; it was supposed that the young woman—without
any, rights—was sold by her father to the family of the bridegroom
where she was taken over and treated as a piece of property.
Closer study of folk-life and a juster appreciation of the woman's
position and of the division of labor between the sexes has taught
us differently. It is true that at a marriage the man's family
presents a gift to the parboru, the father and close relations
of the bride—a gift which in recent times is most frequently
a sum of money but which formerly was mostly in natura, such as
rice or cattle or Other presents. This could be regarded as a
compensation for the transference of the woman from one lineage
to another, but then it should be considered in context, as a
part-transaction in a system of exchange-of-gifts which either
already existed, if the two lineages concerned had a prior affinal
relationship or would be inaugurated with this gift. The exchange
of gifts will be perpetuated at all kinds of occasions that will
present themselves in the future: another wedding, a feast at the
exhumation and entombment of the bones of a venerated ancestor,
at a birth, formerly at a tooth-filing ceremony, nowadays at
some church celebration, also when sickness and misfortune strike-
in short, at all occasions that are out of the ordinary frame of
daily life.
These gifts between groups related to each other through
intermarriage of their members have a special name. They are
called ulos (literally "cloth" or "woven textile") when given
by the hula-hula to the boru. The return present from the
boru to the hula-hula is called piso-piso (piso means "knife"
or "sword"). Thus--feminine against masculine goods. An ulos-
gift could actually be a cloth or several cloths, but can take
the form of a sawah as well; the piso-gift nowadays is no long-
er a knife, but consists of money, cattle, or rice, for example,
but never of land.
Only the hula-hula can give.a rice-field to the boru, on
various occasions—as pauseang when the young couple moves to
a separate dwelling some time after the wedding; as ulos na so
raburuk—"a garment that never wears out"—when the family is
afflicted by serious adversity, sickness, childlessness; as
indahan arian—literally "daily rice"—a sawah specially intended
for a firstborn, and in other similar forms. These gifts are
always transmitted at a common festive meal, with a solemn
address, and always there is a counter-gift from the boru either
one that has been given already on an earlier occasion, or pre-
sented simultaneously, or given later when some adversity in the
hula-hula group offers an opportunity therefor.8
This exchange of presents is a strictly adhered to social
obligation and of great importance in social intercourse.
Thus we see the life of a Toba Batak interwoven with that
of the kin groups among whom he was born, and also of the differ-
ent affinal lineages of whose existence he has already become
quite conscious early in life.
With his own marriage, a marriage of his sister or his
daughter, some of these affinal relatives acquire for him a
special significance as groups: they then become his direct
hula-hula or boru, his nearest relations to whom he will turn
first, in those cases when either the adat or his personal cir-
cumstances force him to do so. Together with the members of
his own family, these relatives will assist him in a law suit;
when in need, these hula-hula and boru will frequently help
him out; it will be they who will try to restore peace when
dissension rages among the relatives—not an exceptional situa-
tion among the Toba Batak with their strong sense of personal
dignity, their sensitivity with regard to signs of proper
esteem of their social status, and their tenacious opposition,
to the extreme, against a true or imaginary injustice.
One can hardly speak of any even somewhat consolidated
classes in this society. There never was, and there is not now,
a hereditary class of chieftains. Everyone who in a certain
region belonged to the marga radja, i.e. to the lineage that
since long ago held the rights to the lands of that region,
could set himself up as chief if he possessed the appropriate
personal qualities and was acceptable by virtue of greater
wealth. Every descendant of a founder of a village could become
radja huta, first among the descendants inhabiting the village,
where again the qualities of his character and personal
superiority weighed heaviest. Theoretically one attributed
the sahala haradjaon, the qualities a radja should possess,—
courage, intelligence and eloquence, hospitality and wealth—
to the oldest branch of the lineage concerned; in practice,
recognition of leadership was granted to one whose acts and
behaviour showed vigour and perseverance. Such a leader could
exercise considerable influence upon the local major and minor
clans despite being a member of the middle or youngest branch
of his lineage. His son could succeed him in his position,
had a certain right to preference, but still had to demonstrate
that he was worthy of it.
Neither did the Netherlands-Indian administration succeed in
establishing a firmer hereditary principle in connection with
chieftainship, even though from time to time it made efforts
in this direction. When in 1937 a new head had to be installed
over a large negeri--the highest autonomous community created by
the Netherlands government—in the region of Balige, no less than
90 candidates presented themselves, who all, in long speeches,9
attempted to prove their unique rights to this elevated position.
In a remote small negeri of Habinsaran some 40 candidates appeared
to plead for their claims to the title.
In the past, this lack of stability--together with other
causes—often led to strife, when certain personalities, to-
gether with their following of hlood and marital relatives,
pushed to the fore. Such strife, though in most cases relative-
ly bloodless, caused periods of local unrest, later followed by
some consolidation with the emergence of a victor, or by an
achievement of a truce with the recognition of a leader who by
his very success had proved his right to recognition.
The Toba Batak had lived in virtual isolation from the out-
side world for a long time. Ages ago they were affected by
ideas of the Hinduistic world which shows among other things
in the names of their deities such as Batara Guru, Soripada,
Mangalabulan, Boraspati.; in their calendar where the names of
the days and months are of Sanskrit origin; in their soothsaying,
in the Singa ornament on their houses, their copper bracelets
and their script which is regarded as deriving from India. How-
ever, a long period of almost complete isolation followed
thereafter, a time when little more was known of the Batak
than tales that they were gruesome cannibals, spending their
energies in internecine wars, cruel people preferably to be
avoided.
This isolation was interrupted only in the thirties of
the past century by a fierce raid of robbery and plunder by
the Padri—a fanatical Moslem sect from Minangkabau who
occupied all of south-Tapanuli from where they ultimately and
with great difficulty were driven out by Netherlands-Indian
military forces.
The first Europeans who penetrate into Toba Batak territory
are the English Baptist missionaries Burton and Ward. Upon
advice of Raffles, they trek, in the beginning of 1824 from Sibolga
to Silindung, where they are well received, and try to preach
Christianity. They have no success, however: the Batak advise
them, emphatically, that they have no use for other ideas and
customs and force them to leave within a few days.
These two missionaries evidently have been sympathetic ob-
servers, They land in a market place where they are surrounded
by a mass of people, running into the thousands, who are so
curious that the visitors must remain on show for hours and hours
and repeatedly answer all sorts of questions, They praise Batak
hospitality; have a good word to say about their chiefs, who
manage to keep the crowd at a certain distance with the help of
their long copper pipes; admire the sturdy houses decorated with
colored woodcarvings and the regular system of building these
structures; they manage to obtain in the course of only a few days
some preliminary insights concerning the Batak religious concep-10
tions and to reduce the extravagant tales of Batak cannibalism and
cruelty to calmer proportions.
Owing to this journey we get some preliminary knowledge of
Batak society in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is
a society in which a certain order reigns; where it is possible
for great masses of people to assemble; where there are chiefs
who can impose their authority; where tljere are many persons who
can read and write their own script; where the cultivation of
irrigated rice-fields and everything connected therewith is
well developed; where the architecture and utensils testify to
good craftsmanship--all of which is later confirmed by the first
accounts of the German missionaries who begin their work in
Silindung shortly after 1860. Later writings often show a ten-
dency to overstress less favorable factors, such as local wars
and feuds, and to give the impression that this society was in a
state of constant upheaval while in fact such events were usually
locally limited and incidental.
Burton's and Ward's trip leads to no further consequences.
The British administration disappears from Sumatra in the same
year, 1824. The Dutch successors will still maintain a policy
of non-intervention in the Toba Batak area for decades to come.
In the years that follow, a few more European explorers come
to Silindung--among them the famous Junghuhn—but these short
visits are of little significance to the Toba Batak, give them
no more than a glimpse of the outside world from which they wish
to keep apart.
The great onslaught for opening up the Central Batak-land
comes—without himself being conscious of it—from the great
linguist Dr. Neubronner van der Tuuk. Commissioned by the
Netherlands Bible Society, he settles in 1850 in the vicinity
of Barus as the only European among the Batak. He has to over-
come much opposition, but succeeds in the course of about one
year in securing acceptance. His stay has been very fruitful
for the study of the Batak language—an excellent dictionary,
a grammar which is still in use, with reading texts in the Toba-,
Dairi- and Mandailing dialects, and a sizable collection of
written texts of Batak stories, were the result.
Van der Tuuk's scholarly work is directly connected with
the beginning of the activities of the Rheinische Mission among
the Toba Batak, which were to become so momentous to them. In
1859, the Rheinische Mission was forced to abandon its field
of activity in South Borneo, after the murder of a few mission-
aries. A new field was being sought and the Batak Lands were
chosen after the inspector of the mission, Dr. Fabri, more or less
accidentally met. Van der Tuuk while on a visit to the Netherlands
and was informed by the latter about the Toba Batak and their
region.
On October 7, 1861, a decision is taken by four missionaries
meeting in Sipirok to proceed northwards, especially to the land
of the Toba Batak.11
This date assuredly can be regarded as the turning point
that initiates an entirely new situation for the Toba Batak, for
now begins their real contact with the West,. Wavering at first,
then in ever more rapid progression, conversion to Christianity
in its Lutheran form takes place, with an increasingly speedy
adjustment and adaptation to a new world of ideas that are
assimilated in one’s own fashion.
This did not happen without initial resistance. When the
great missionary, Nommensen—called the apostle of the Batak—
settles as first missionary in Silindung in 1864, he certainly
is not received with open arms. The people are hospitable, of
course,—adat demands it—but they unceasingly insist that he
depart. When this meets with no success whatsoever, and
Nommensen tenaciously maintains that he wishes to stay on per-
manently, all manner of obstruction is put in his way„ He gets
land for a house only after a great deal of trouble, and in a
swampy place at that; he may not have wood cut for his house,
but must content himself with old materials of an abandoned
dwelling at a high purchase price. However, Nommensen is not
a man easily deflected by such adversities from the task which
he feels to be his calling. With endless patience he talks
with the people untiringly, addicted as they are to captious
argumentation; plays the violin for them till deep into the
night; keeps showing them things he had brought from Europe; and
always remains friendly, ever ready to be of assistance.
Before long the situation improves somewhat. People begin
to listen attentively to his Bible stories--those of the Old
Testament are particularly appreciated. One realizes that this
strange person has not come for selfish purposes, that one can
learn something from him; that he is not bent on acquiring a
position of power. After a year or so, Nommensen baptizes the
first eight Batak. A year later there are over 50 men and women—
and with this he finds himself suddenly in the midst of new and
grave problems. These first Christians suffer great enmity from
their social environment. They participate no longer in their
own religious customs, refuse to make contributions to the feasts,
and turn away—with exaggerated zeal, originally stimulated by
Nommensen—from various Batak institutions, This leads to their
expulsion, they must leave their villages, relinquish their
rice-fields. Nommensen receives them in his place, founds as
it were a new village which he names Huta Dame—Village of Peace.
The situation improves considerably when a few leading
chieftains embrace Christianity. This conversion of a few radja
is of greater significance than would be judged superficially.
For they are heads of a lineage, of a territory comprising several
villages; they constitute an example for all the men and women
who recognize them as leaders; they are the public conscience,
as it were, the protectors of adat and of law It is they who
judge, formally and informally, what is just and right. This
signifies a turning point for Silindung; one begins to take
pride in inviting Nommensen, the friend of several influential12
chiefs, as a guest of honor to a meal, and one calls for his
assistance at disputes.
Moreover, Nommensen begins to utilize Batak ambition, the
craving for esteem and prestige, also of those who heretofore
had no opportunity to assert themselves amid the vicissitudes of
Batak society. This he achieves by appointments of sintua,
leaders whom he makes responsible for the proper behaviorof the
first Christians and who, furthermore, are to propagate the new
faith among their pagan relations and other co-habitants of their
region, all of which gratifies their sense of self-esteem. Batak
enthusiasm for innovation is engaged also with the establishment
of a school where young and old can learn things that elevate them
above their social environment.
Thus, within a few years, the Rheinische Mission had come
to occupy in Silindung a recognized or at least a tolerated
position. Gradually—even if rather slowly in the beginning—
the number of Christians grows. New missionaries arrive who,
after a short while, establish their own stations. Nommensen
himself builds a big church at Pearadja, near Tarutung, which to
the present day remains the center of the Batak Church.
While the start of the Rheinische Mission's work is thus
very encouraging, serious trouble begins as soon as it turns
towards the North--real, organized resistance of the old against
the new arises.
The leader of this resistance is Ompu Pulo Batu, the twelfth
and last Singa Mangaradja, a militant personality, exponent of
Batak paganism and nationalism, who persevered until his death
in 1907.
I cannot dwell deeply here upon this remarkable figure of
the Batak world of the past. The Sumba half of Batak society
(Lontung did not recognize him) attributed to Si Singa Mangaradja
supernatural gifts—he could cause the rains to fall and to stop
as desired; elaborate myths were in circulation concerning the
birth of the first Si Singa Mangaradja—his mother was said to
have been pregnant seven years and when finally he came to the
world, the earth shook, terrible storms arose with incessant
flashes of lightening, and the rains poured and poured in heavy
streams; his tongue was hairy and to sight it meant death to the
ordinary mortal.
The various writers who have studied the significance of Si
Singa Mangaradja concentrated mainly on the religious significance
of this figure, but paid practically no attention to his role in
political life. It was said that on some occasions he was able
to secure a truce—by sending his staff—between two feuding
regions whose protracted hostilities lasted too long and seemed
hopeless, but further his influence was not judged to have been
of any great consequence.13
This is by no means a complete account of Ompu Pulo Batu
who succeeds his father in 1875 /as Si Singa Mangaradja χπ./
In the year 1876, the Rheinische Mission extends its field
of activities to the Highlands of Toba. A missionary settles
at Bahai Batu and one at Lobu Siregar. A wave of unrest spreads
through the region with S. S. M. as leader. Then rumour spreads
that he is recruiting auxiliary troops from Atjeh, and now the
Netherlands Government deems it necessary to send a military
expedition. A column of a couple of hundred men makes the long
trek across the Highlands, descends into Bakkara—Si Singa
Mangaradja's residence at the south-western shore of Lake Toba—
and continues along the lake to Balige. Sometimes the population
shows resistance and eventually the people abandon their villages;
in some villages they are discouraged at the approach of the
military forces and report to them. In this case a short-term
fine is imposed; but if the chiefs do not arrive to offer
submission, the villages are burned.
Nommensen, who participates in this expedition as inter-
preter, gives a graphic description of the events. Everywhere
villages_go up in flames; in some regions not a single huta
/village/ is spared. By means of this very forceful action,
The tasK is accomplished and peace is restored—in appearance
at least. Si Singa Mangaradja hides in a less accessible region.
A controleur {Dutch civil administrator) of the Internal
Administration is then installed at Tarutung, in charge of the
whole Silindung region. The Government refrains for the time
being from any intervention in the areas further to the North.
Meanwhile, the appearance of the military, their effective
armament and the show of force have made an impression in Toba.
When, thereafter, a few of the leading chiefs—.who sense which
way the tide is turning—request that a missionary be sent to
Balige, they must also accept the condition of the Dutch that
simultaneously an administrative officer and a military garrison
must be admitted and their orders and directions obeyed.
This opportunistic attitude, which, however, under the
circumstances showed a sober appreciation of the future, was not
shared by many a chief and his adherents. No sooner does a
missionary anive to stay at Balige in 1883 and a controleur
establish himself with a small number of troops at Laguboti (a
few miles to the north), than Si Singa Mangaradja unleashes a
counteraction. The house of the missionary is set on fire and,
somewhat later, the controleur with his soldiers is shut within
a huta near Balige by thousands of Batak led by Si Singa
Mangaradja himself. The prospects of the besieged ones are
gloomy, but during a sally in the early morning Si Singa
Mangaradja is wounded, his troops scatter hither and yon, and
a small contingent coming from Samosir in boats makes a hasty
turnabout and flees home. Again punitive action follows. Fines
are imposed as compensation for damages inflicted upon the govern-14
ment and upon the mission whose stations at Lintong ni Huta and
at Muara have also been destroyed by fire.
In the ensuing years unrest continues. Cases of arson occur
and even a nocturnal attack upon Tarutung, which must be repulsed.
Then in 1889 Si Singa Mangaradja invades the government's terri-
tory once more, and renewed military action is necessary which
brings the same result. The village where Si Singa Mangaradja
has established his headquarters is captured too. He himself
flees to a remote region west of Lake Toba. This is the end
of S.S.M.'s organized resistance. He never appears again in the
subjugated area and, finally, in 1907, he is tracked down and
killed by a military patrol.
After the last government expedition, Samosir and the
northern parts of Toba and Habinsaran, still remain independent,
but these regions too are incorporated between 1904 and 1908.
Thus there had been fairly general resistance in the 70's
and 80's of the past century, quelled several times by fairly
quick and forceful action; and there have always been people,
chiefs and others, who from the beginning joined the side of
the new rulers. In this respect, history still repeats itself
in many periods and in many places.
The Rheinische Mission now moves towards a flourishing
period; the power and resistance of the old Batak world is crushed
everywhere. Rapidly a readjustment takes place—new churches
arise everywhere, converts stream in by the thousands. The
mission actually cannot cope with them all, and this causes
anxiety among the missionaries concerning the quality of the
new Christians. A great demand for education arises as the people
feel that new opportunities are opening up, opportunities in the
material and spiritual fields which should not be missed.
Inevitably mutual disappointments are not slow in coming.
The Batak expect more than only conversion to Christianity.
They expect improvement in their material existance, they want
to spread their wings, not to remain within the limitations of
their old living conditions. "Hamadjuon"--progress--is the
slogan that many adopt as their guiding principle. And here
the Batak mission falls short in Batak eyes—it cannot but fall
short. The concern of the missionaries is the spiritual salva-
tion, as they conceive it; they demand of all the new Christians
a mode of life that is beyond the latter's wishes and powers.
The radja expect the missionaries to assist them to secure
governmental positions to which they strongly aspire and many are
disappointed. "Manche zogen sich beleidigt von den Missionaren
und Gottesdiensten zuriick. Von den neuernannten Hauptlingen aber
trugen einige die Kopfe gefahrlich hoch_>" (1) writes Warneck in
(1) "Some withdrew, offended, from the missionaries and the reli-
gious services. But among the newly appointed chiefs, some
carried their heads dangerously high.”15
his "Sechzig Jahre Batakmission in Sumatra," (2) when he deals
with the first re-organization of Batak autonomous communities
and the appointment of chiefs by the Netherlands-Indian adminis-
tration .
One of the expressions of this discord is the establishment
in 1917 of the H.C.B., the Hatopan Christen Batak, which sets up
branches everywhere and wishes to make use of the small and
larger churches spread over the whole central Batak land. The
Rheinische Mission resists, the missionary wants to retain full
control. Then the H.C.B. goes its own way and provides above
all a strong stimulus to economic development—something that
the mission always regarded as of secondary importance. This
organization still exists today under the name "Huria Kristen
Indonesia" but it seems to have lost the elan of its first
period. Actually there is less reason for its existence now that
the Batak church is completely under Batak leadership.
The first move in this direction was made as far back as
1929 when a new church order was established at a high Synod,
introducing church councils that took over the financial admin-
istration from the missionaries and were made co-responsible for
the welfare of the congregations. Nevertheless, Batak self-
confidence was so strongly developed by that time, that alien-
ation persisted between the German missionaries—who still wanted
to interfere too much in everything—and the Batak church leaders,
of greater or lesser stature. They suspected the missionaries
of harboring a sense of superiority--which indeed was there
though combined with the best of intentions--and they could
hardly bear it any longer.
When, on May 10th, 1940, the German missionaries—among'
whom there were many convinced adherents of Hitler—were interned,
this caused little commotion. One may almost say that it pro-
vided a sense of relief among the Batak. The few Dutch Mission-
aries who came from other regions of Indonesia to take over and
to continue the work of the Rheinische Mission, experienced
little satisfaction. There was a strong desire to pursue the
work independently and apparently this was done with success after
the Japanese occupation.
All above is somewhat generalized; open enmity was relative-
ly rare, but there was rather considerable coolness in mutual
understanding, which in former times, took the shape of the
missionary acting as a father to his multitude of under-age
children, a number of whom could be charged with all sorts of
tasks, who could be entrusted with a certain degree of responsi-
bility but who had to continue to accept the missionary's leader-
ship, even when they themselves felt that they had come of age.
After the war signs of rapprochement appeared—in a strongly
(2) /"Sixty Years of Batak Mission in Sumatra,"/, Berlin, 1925,
p. 126.	—16
changed situation. The Rhenish missionary Muller-Kruger, teacher
at the Higher Theological School of Djakarta, journeyed through
the Batak Lands in the summer of 1950, enjoying warm contact
with the Batak church leaders. The Batak church requested the
Rheinische Mission to send out three physicians and a few
European nurses. The present head of the Batak church recently
received an honorary doctorate in theology at the University of
Bonn.
Since 1935 the Catholic mission, too, has been active among
the Toba Batak. In the beginning especially, the following of
this new direction came from those who for one reason or another
were dissatisfied with their place in the Batak church. Further-
more one was glad to take advantage of the education offered.
Discords within extended family circles were occasioned by this
double set of missions, too. The Catholic mission managed to
take root in a few places though sometimes not without much dis-
sent and local opposition. After the war the majority of its
missionaries returned to their former stations to continue their
work but under much more difficult conditions. It would appear
that they have won for themselves a permanent, though still modest
position.
Having reviewed missionary activities as one facet of Toba
Batak contact with the West, we no face the question what kind
of influence the Netherlands-Indian administration had, what was
the significance for Batak society of its incorporation into the
Netherlands-Indian entity and of the possibilities stemming there-
from.
The first administrative officers—often briefed by the
missionaries--tried to create some order in the multiplicity of
organizational forms that resulted from the Toba Batak kinship
system. They recognized at once the great significance of the huta
as the smallest political unit, but were confronted with the
difficulty that it was unfeasible in practice to deal with these
thousands of, often minute, communities. Above them they saw
the territories, inhabited by one lineage and its relations. In
some cases a fairly large territory could be regarded as an en-
tity under one head with some degree of central authority; in
others, a region would be split into smaller village-complexes
without a central figure recognized as leader of the whole; or
unity was disrupted by disputes over sawahs, gambling debts,
complaints of one chief against subjects of another, complications
that resulted from some prior wedding promises, etc.
It was essential to introduce some order. Huta were joined
into kampongs with primary attention to their mutual location
and much less to the question whether or not they actually belonged
together. Kampong heads were appointed as bearers of an entirely
new office. They were especially charged with the execution of17
governmental regulations, supervision of the labor dues /corvee/
and later the collection of taxes. They were not intended to be
adat chiefs, but in the course of years they managed to nibble
away quite a bit from the modest prerogatives of the radja huta
/village head/.
Kampongs were joined into hundulan headed by a djaihutan—
an abbreviation of radja ihutan"/ laterally "head who has to be
followed," i.e. obeyed. Sometimes it was convenient to make a
certain area directly into a hundulan and then only one person
was recognized there as the leader. Often, however, a middle
way had to be sought when one complex was too small to form an
administrative unit and several such complexes were joined to
constitute one hundulan, of suitable size. All this caused
strife between the representatives of lineages that were to be
joined together, and the administrative officer was stormed by
people who competed with each other as candidates for headship.
Then solution was often found in the invention of still another
new function, the radja padua, subordinated to the djaihutan
as head of a subdivision of a hundulan.
In short, while the administration tried as much as possible
to take into consideration the social structure, there were many
practical difficulties that prevented a satisfactory solution.
After the Administration had worked for several decades
with these hundulans and the (ijaihutans and the radja padua, it
came to the conclusion that these units were too small for the
progressively comprehensive functions of government—the control-
eur had to deal with too many heads. The administrative units
had to be enlarged and an intermediate link created between
controleur ^nd folk-chief.
This led to the formation in 1917 of the still existing
negeri, mostly composed of a few hundulan. In the Central Batak
Land there are about 170 such negeri averaging some 3,000 in
population; some are smaller but a few, considerably larger.
While marga relationships were given consideration, this never-
theless was an entirely new creation. It became particularly
apparent at the appointments of negeri heads, officials whose
function had no basis in the old adat system. The appointment
of heads of negeri was a continuous source of woe. When the inhab-
itants were permitted to vote, bribery and other means to subvert
the voters were common phenomena, and, moreover, in the allocation
of voting rights little or no consideration was given to the
adat differentiations between kinship by blood and affiliation
through inter-marriage. In a later attempt to establish adat
consultation, the first problem was the composition of members
of such a rapat adat, an adat council that had of course never
before existed for a negeri; the second difficulty was the great
number of candidates, as there was no hereditary principle in
the adat. Thus the principle of consultation through an adat-
council did not yield a satisfactory solution either. In the
period when a final decision by the Resident was being awaited,18
a flood of petitions poured in, and when ultimately the knot was
cut, a stream of complaints followed—to the Governor-General,
to the Volksraad /People’s Council/, and to other authorities.
The result was agitation and unrest before as well as after the
decision. Another consequence was that the newly appointed Kepala
Negeri /head of negeri/ had little authority by virtue of his
status per se, and hacT to prove his worth in practice by showing
what sort ofauthority he could gain over the people of his negeri
and especially over his disappointed rival-candidates.
This whole configuration also explains to a large extent why
the district administration came to play such a predominant role.
Simultaneously with the formation of the negeri, districts and
sub-districts had been established, headed by a demang and assist-
ant-demang respectively. Initially these were recruited from
amongst the most capable Batak officials found at the offices
of the Controleurs or in other bureaus of special services; later
they were trained at the OSVIA, the training school for indigenous
officials. A sub-district comprised ten to fifteen negeri; a
district usually had two or three sub-districts. Later the dis-
trict was abolished and the demang became an ambtenaar ter
beschikking /aide/, to the Controleur.
This system further undermined the position of the heads of
negeri; the assistant-demang was the person to whom the people
applied directly; the controleur, for his part, also turned for
all sorts of questions to the assistant-demang and not to the
head of negeri. The latter became almost a sort of fifth wheel,
who had to carry out whatever either the European or the Batak
officials requested but from whom little initiative was expected.
In the sphere of justice heads of negeri could deal together with
the kampong heads—only with the simplest of cases; further, they
were in turn members of the lower and higher rapat (court of
justice), chaired by the assistant-demang or a European govern-
ment official. Next, together with their kampong heads, they
also had to collect the taxes, enforce the corvee and cooperate
in different plans for increasing welfare in their negeri.
Yet headship of a negeri was keenly sought: it provided,
after all, status and prestige and regular contact with the
European officials who, for that matter, supported the heads of
negeri when these had to cope with internal troubles in their
territory; for peace and order had to be maintained.
It is not surprising that the function of kepala negeri,
which was never quite assimilated in the growing social organism,
ceased to exist in its original form after the war. Every negeri
now has an elected council: the Dewan Negeri, under rotating
chairmanship. The district administration is being maintained
though the titles--demang and assistant-demang--have been abol-
ished and supplanted by Javanese titles, wedana and assistant-
wedana. Besides, there are now 33 territorial-subdivisions--
ketjamatan—formed under one tjamat, something quite new.* The
* /as of 1951, when this lecture was given in Leiden/19
position of these tjamat is not quite clear to me.* My sources
were a number of Batak weeklies whose readers are naturally
familiar with this function in daily life. It appears that 31
of these ketjamatan have a pasar /market/, so that the care of
the market system, so important in the Batak-lands, may well be
one of the significant functions of the tjamat.
Thus the missions as well as the Netherlands-Indian govern-
ment have wrought great changes in Batak society. From these two
sources also stems education for which a great demand existed and
still exists, ever since the RJieinische Mission started its acti-
vities. There were three-year folk-schools throughout the land
for the ultimate education of village youth. This elementary
education was given by a mission-teacher who on Sundays, was
also leader in the small village church. Above these folk
schools were the continuation schools among which some were ex-
clusively for girls. Further, there were a few Hollands-Inlandse
schools /schools on the Dutch model for indigenous students/, and
at Tarutung a MULO. All education was virtually in the hands of
the mission which—by its own admission—received for this a
substantial subsidy from the Government. During the Japanese
occupation all these schools were transformed into public schools,
but apparently there is talk again of transferring them to the
Batak church.
However extensive—by comparison with other parts of the
Netherlands Indies—the opportunities for education may have been,
they did not nearly meet the needs. This accounts for the pre-
war existence of various so-called "wild schools," schools where
sometimes English was taught too, schools often led by unqualified
teachers and where the standard of education was low.
Striving for social advancement underlay this desire for
education. The young people sought some job with the mission
and at government offices and later flocked to the East Coast
to seek employment in offices of the estates /plantations/. Due
to their intelligence and zeal they met relatively high standards.
A number of them have gone far: there are Toba-Batak physicians,
lawyers and other academically trained professional men. One
repeatedly meets Toba-Batak names among officials of the present
Republican Government and among the higher military. Complaints
that the Toba-Batak intelligentsia are abandoning their own land
for better opportunities elsewhere is far from unjustified.
* /_The author says that since writing this article he has learned
that the tjamat has replaced the assistant-wedana and probably
has functions similar to those of the prewar assistant-demang.
Dr. Keuning adds that there seem to be now some 8-12 ketjamatan
more than there were sub-districts before the war./20
At present one finds Toba-Batak colonies throughout Indonesia
and in Malacca, where, continuing to adhere to their own church
and the Batak adat, they form a group somewhat apart. Thousands
of Batak have permanently settled on the East Coast of Sumatra.
Trade, which could begin to develop with the opening of the Batak-
land, is another stimulus for Batak energy and talent. There are
a few centers of trade and communication, already mentioned earlier--
Balige and Tarutung especially—where practically all enterprises
are in Batak hands. The Chinese could not play their usual role
of wholesale merchants and middlemen among the Batak. The toko
/shof>s7 are Batak-owned; Batak own the motor vehicles for the
Transportation of people and goods; the trade in and transporta-
tion of rice and benzoin--the principal export articles—is in
Batak hands. Batak merchants and traders import and distribute
articles that are now in demand from abroad and elsewhere. The
importation of goods is facilitated by the favorable location of
Batak centers along the main Medan—Sibolga—Bukit Tinggi highway,
and their distribution by the extensive network of side-roads
along which trucks can reach remote settlements. For this the
past tense ought to be used—since these side-roads, some 1,000
miles surely, are at present apparently in very poor condition and
many crumbled bridges and culverts are said to make some stretches
impassable.
We may state that in the course of the past century the Toba
Batak have managed, to make an excellent adjustment, to seize upon
the new opportunities and still remain true to themselves. There
is no question of disintegration. The kinship system remains
intact; tradition and customary law remain strong and equally bind-
ing for persons who have risen to social prominence. The great
mass of villagers still cultivate their sawah in the same way as
they did a hundred years ago; next to this, trade and communica-
tion have become new sources of income. The community bonds
have remained strong in the villages, and religion, while changed
in form, seems to satisfy the people's needs judging by the flour-
ishing Batak church.
The old Batak crafts--weaving excepted—have disappeared.
Copper-, gold-, and silver smiths have vanished, and the typical
sturdy, and beautifully decorated but unhygienic houses, are no
longer being built. The manner of dressing has changed drastic-
ally, especially for men, who prefer trousers, shirt and jacket
to hip-skirt and shoulder cloth.
Next to the desire for new knowledge and experience, interest
in their own adat and history is maintained in Batak society. A
modest postwar weekly publication devotes much space to these sub-
jects .
The last ten years have been difficult ones for the Toba
Batak. With the arrival of the Japanese they adopted a wait-and-
see attitude. Of enmity against the Dutch, which could have
easily exploded then,there were no signs. The Japanese appear
to have earned the people’s hatred, quite understandably, as they21
took no trouble to comprehend these people and their customs,
and military dictate goes against Batak grain. After the truce,
the Batak-lands were left to their own devices. An administration
was organized, first over the whole of Tapanuli, under a Toba-
Batak Resident aided by a representative council. Later the
central Batak-land became more independent as Tapanuli Utara
/North-Tapanuli/. It is headed by a bupati /regent/ and there
Ts a representative council: Dewan Perwakilan Rakjat Daerah
Kebupaten Tapanuli -Utara. A small working committee—Badan
Pekerdja—is chosen therefrom. Under the bupati’s authority are
the wedana and the tjamat. In Sibolga there is further a so-
called coordinator, often still referred to as Resident, for the
whole of Tapanuli which, in turn, is part of the province of North
Sumatra with a Governor in Medan.
There was violent resistance in the Batak-lands against
the Dutch during the second police-action; guerrilla warfare
blazed; only the main highway seems to have been accessible to
Dutch troops and then only with convoys and at great risk of
attacks. Particularly dangerous was the notorious section of the
road between Tarutung and Sibolga with its 1,300 curves over a
distance of some 40 miles. I cannot judge to what extent this
was a spontaneous general uprising or an action led by a well-
organized minority. Apparently there were a number of former
Batak civil officials, heads, and private individuals who rejoin-
ed the returning Netherlander which later led to their exile to
the East Coast and the destruction or confiscation of their pro-
perty.
As regards the present situation as of 1952, the following
can be said on the basis of available information:
Compared with the years up to and including 1941, the mater-
ial circumstances have regressed; the roads, bridges and markets
are in poor condition for lack of maintenance over a period of
years; the export and import of goods does not always proceed
successfully--in 1950 tons of cabbage and other vegetables had
to be permitted to rot; life is more expensive. There are
complaints about an excess of government officials, especially
of incompetent ones who owe their position to their former par-
ticipation in guerrilla action. Bribery and corruption are
apparently not rare; the educational system suffers from a lack
of well-trained personnel.
On the positive side there is security in the whole Toba-
Batak region; a prospering and well-organized Batak church
despite understandable financial obstacles; a frank press which
dares to criticize all sorts of deficiencies and even does not
hesitate from time to time to make some comparisons with more
favorable prewar conditions—a press which does not yield to
threats of personal persecution, as have actually occurred. There
is an administrative organization together with representative22
councils which seem to have successfully overcome initial grow-
ing pains. There is conscious realization of existing imperfections
and efforts are made to overcome them. Instances of such efforts
are the establishment of cooperatives; of an association of the
marga-complex Guru Mangaloksa—counting tens of thousands of mem-
bers—aiming at economic and cultural betterment; or a delegation
sent by the representative council of North Tapanuli to the Central
Government in Djakarta with a well-formulated program of fair de-
mands which showed a good understanding of the present difficul-
ties. I believe that Toba-Batak leaders have shown considerable
discernment and integrity; their insight is already confirmed by
the way in which they uphold the esteem of their own adat and lang-
uage at a time when their own cultural values could so easily dis-
integrate and pass on to a colorless cultural uniformity.
* /In further elucidating the perhaps ambiguous use of the word
marga, the author explained (in a letter) that the term ’’head
marga" was introduced as hoofdmarga by Vergouwen to indicate that
such a "head marga" consists of several patrilineally related
marga that descended from this "head marga." For example: the
head marga in the Silindung valley near Tarutung is Guru
Mangaloksa. It has four branch-marga;
(Huta Barat
(Pansrerabean
Guru Mangaloksa - (HutI Gaiung
(Huta Toruan
The last, Huta Toruan, is further split into Huta Pea and Lumban
Tobing.
The great difference between the head marga and the marga is that
the head marga is no longer exogamous.
The "head marga" is not to be confused with the marga radja
(marga of chiefs) mentioned on p. 8, which is that lineage (a
part of the marga) in a given autonomous region which tradition-
ally exercises chieftanship and possesses special rights on the
land.
The Batak themselves use the word marga for all major patri-
lineal groups, for the exogamous marga, and also for what we
term "head marga," which consists of several exogamous marga./23
Brief Selected Bibliography* for the Study
of Toba-Batak Culture and Society
General;
Encyclopedie van Nederlandsch-Indie, 2nd Edition, 1917, Vol I
pp. 177-183.------------------------
Eerde, J. C. van, De volken van Nederlandsch-Indie, 2 Vols
Amsterdam, 192U-1921, “VoIT""I, pp. 121-151.-------
Joustra, M., Batakspiegel, 2nd Edition, Leiden, 1926. (In many
particulars somewhat out of date.)
Modigliani, E., Fra i Batacchi indipendenti, Rome, 1892.
Voorhoeve, P., Overzicht van de Volksverhalen der Bataks,
Vlissingen~ 1927 .	~
History:
Keuning, J., "Toba-Bataks en Mandailing-Bataks," Indonesie, VII,
1953-1954, pp. 156-173.	---------
Pleyte, C· M., "De verkenning der Bataklanden," Tijdschrift
Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, 2nd Series, XII,
T893,”pp. "71-96, 727-740.---------------
Tideman, J., Hindoe-invloed in Noordelijk Batakland, Amsterdam,
1936.	--------------------------------------
Warneck, J., Sechzig Jahre Batakmission in Sumatra, Berlin, 1925.
Social Organization and Customary Law:
Keuning, J., "Eenige beschouwingen betreffende de staatkundige
organisatie onder de Toba-Batak," Koloniaal Tijdschrift,
XXVIII, 1939, pp. 490-509.	------------------
♦ Very detailed and in a high degree reliable is;
Kennedy, Raymond, Bibliography of Indonesian Peoples and
Cultures, Yale University, Revised Edition, Γ955, Vol. Ϊ,
ppT~T45^171.24
Vergouwen, J. C., Het Rechtsleven der Toba-Bataks, The Hague, 1933
Ypes, W. K. H., Bijdrage tot de kennis van de stamverwantschap,
de inheemsche rechtsgemeenschappen en het grondenrecht der
Toba- en Dairi-Bataks, The Hague, 1932.-------------------—-----
Zanen, A. J. van, Voorwaarden voor maatschappelijke ontwikkeling
in het centrale Batakland, Leiden, 1934.	----------
Religion:
Korn, V. E., "Batakse offerande," Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land-
en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie, CIX, 1953, pp. 32-51,
97-127.	----------------
Tobing, Ph. L., The Structure of the Toba-Batak Belief in the High
God, Amsterdam, 1956.	—-----
Warneck, Joh., Die Toba-Batak auf Sumatra in gesunden und kranken
Tagen, Stuttgart, 1925.	~	~	'
Language:
Meerwaldt, J. H. , Handleiding tot de beoefening der Bataksche
taal, Leiden, 1904. (A grammar.)
Tuuk, Η. N. van der, Tobasche spraakkunst, 2 Vols., Amsterdam,
1864-1867. (A grammar.)
__________ Bataksch leesboek, I. Stukken in het Tobasch (in Batak
script), Amsterdam, 1860. (Batak reader)
__________ Bataksch Nederduitsch Woordenboek, (in Batak script),
Amsterdam, 1861. (Batak-Dutch dietionary)
Warneck, J., Toba bataksch-Deutsches Worterbuch, Batavia, 1906.
(Toba-Batak-German dictionary)
Art and Architecture:
Boer, D. W. N. de, "Het Toba-Bataksche huis," Mededelingen van het
Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen^ bewerkt
door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, XXIII, W'eltevreden, 1920.
Lorm, A. J. de, en Tichelman, G. L., "Verdwijnend cultuurbezit,"
in Beeldende kunst der Bataks, Leiden, 1941.