11Story

07 May 2009

Funeral Art

The Batak

Contents - The history and western discovery of the Batak - Social and political life - Religion and rituals             * The beliefs             * Tondi and begu - The objects of the priest: the datu items - The Death - Synopsis of the exhibition             * The Workd of the Dead             * Singa             * Musical instruments             * The Toba House             * Enclosing the world             * Weapons and associated objects             * The datu items             * The protection - Bibliography

 

The Death

 

When a Batak dies the tondi leaves the body and the begu is set free. There are several kinds of deaths. The death of an old person who has fulfilled the main obligations of life is considered quite different compared to the death of a woman who died during childbirth. The latter is considered to be dangerous and is therefore treated in another manner than the former. Burial rituals differ greatly among the Batak and it is therefore difficult to give an overall picture of the way the Batak deal with their dead. Differences occur in different regions, but even in the same village burial rituals can differ according to the status of the family. Among the Toba, people who could afford it would be buried in a wooden coffin, often already carved before a person died and kept under the roof, just outside the house. When someone dies, people are coming from neighbouring villages and related families. Death among the Batak is never an individual matter, or a matter of the small nuclear family. It always involved large groups of people who were in some way related to the deceased. Financial matters are discussed as well. Animals are slaughtered and the meat is given to the begu of the dead person, in order to please it and to prevent it from doing evil. Sacrifices are also essential for enabling the begu to enter the realm of the respectable dead. Wealthy dead could afford to mark their graves with wooden or stone sculpture (Warneck 1904: 71-76). Barbier, in an article on stone sculpture among the Toba, distinguishes three types of ancestral or funerary statues: 1. portraits of recently deceased persons, commissioned by the immediate descendants; 2. twin statues in wood, rarely in stone, representing deified ancestors 3. statues of known or supposedly known who died long ago and have reached the summit of the Other World’s hierarchy (the begu has become a sumangot or a somboan) (Barbier 1993: 13-14).   There is also a secondary burial among the Toba, at least among people who can afford it. Years after an important person died people dig up the bones and rebury them in a large stone sarcophagus, with large impressive singa (mythological animals) heads sculpted on them. This practice mainly occurs on Samosir. Less wealthy families construct little wooden houses to pose the bones in. Nowadays the construction of large stone memorials for the dead is still practised in Toba land. It concerns impressive, often colourful, memorials which also serve to enhance the status of the family that has erected them.

 

 

Funeral dances. The dancers weared woods-hands articulated and they accompanied the coffin until the cemetery where the masks were put down the tomb. Picture taken by Tassilo Adam around 1870. © Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. 10017909.

 

 

In several Batak groups masks occur to accompany the deceased to the realm of the dead (Sibeth 1991: 778). Usually two masks performed: one male and one female. The masked dancers were accompanied by a hornbill or a horse mask, called huda huda. According to Tichelman (1939b: 378) the masks were used at the occasion of burial rituals for important people. It is said that when an important person dies a hornbill comes to offer himself to serve as huda huda (Ibid: 384). Although the masks for death rituals have been documented among the Toba, the Karo and the Simalungun the rituals themselves have not been well-documented. However, when one look at other Indonesian societies where masks are used for this purpose it seems likely that the Batak masks served to accompany the dead on their journey to the realm of the dead. They probably were also meant to ward off evil spirits.

 

 

Karo mask weared by the guru during the funeral ceremony. The holes on the top of its face were used to fix some magic grasses. © musée du quai Branly, photo Patrick Gries, Bruno Descoings, 70.2001.27.193.

 

According to - yet another article - of G.L. Tichelman, the Toba village of Balige is the place of origin of the Si Gale Gale, a puppet used during death rituals in only some Toba villages. Nowadays the Si Gale Gale is also used for tourist performances, but in the past it occurred when a man had died without having produced male descendants. The practice is probably not very old. Tichelman (1939a: 107) suggest it came into existence by the mid nineteenth century. The story goes that there was great sadness in the village when the only son of one of the families died. The sadness did not fade away and at a certain moment the father of the deceased decided to create a puppet that looked like his son. With movable head and hands he gave a strikingly impressive performance of his son’s appearance and everybody was touched. From that moment on the Si Gale Gale performances developed. One of the purposes is to ward off evil spirits. However, there is another, most important, reason for making and using Si Gale Gale. A Batak who dies without having produced a son becomes a nameless spirit who has the lowest possible status (of a slave). Such a spirit has nothing to lose and is therefore capable of doing all kinds of evil. This is very much feared among the living. With the Si Gale Gale people want to communicate with the deceased. They ask a tukang Si Gale Gale, a specialized puppeteer, to please the begu of the deceased and ‘to bring back the balance’, in order not to disturb the happiness of the living (Tichelman 1939a: 109-110). Finally some words about the boat shaped coffins of the Karo. Among the Karo ordinary people were buried outside the house as soon as possible, but influential, important people were placed in a boat shaped coffin on pillars close to the house. The body fluid could espace the decaying body through a bamboo tube. After some years, when there were enough resources available to organize a large ceremony, the bones of the deceased were taken out and placed in a skull house (geriten). The rest of the body was cremated or reburied (Sibeth 1991: 71). Often hornbill images were carved to decorate the boat shaped coffins. One also sees human figures with shotguns on the coffins. The ‘firing of the guns is supposed on the one hand to keep away the harmful bégu and on the other prevent the tendi of the participants in the funeral from following the bégu of the deceased’ (Ibid: 71).

 

				During the funeral of a rich man, the masks played an important role in the course of the ceremony. Here, the dancer is covered with a textile which is hiden the structure of the mask, he carries out the dance of the horse huba huba. Picture taken by Elio Modigliani in 1870. © Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden, inv. A56-1

 

 

 

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