11Story

07 May 2009

The beliefs

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 beliefs

 

The first missionaries among the Karo had great difficulty explaining to the people what they wanted to achieve in the region. They had to explain they were not representatives of the plantation owners on the east coast of Sumatra and that they were not government officials, but these two issues did not provoke the most difficult problems. The main problem was how to cope with the Karo conception of religion. The first misionary, Hendrik Kruyt, understood the problem very well and he took great care in finding the correct translation for the word ‘God’. He chose for ‘dibata’, which is a Batak word for the category of Gods. However, this solution did not solve a lot. For many Batak, and certainly for the Karo, the Gods are too far away to pay a lot of attention to. Spirits and intermediar Gods are much more important than the ‘highest supernatural beings’. Spirits can influence your daily life and offerings should be brought to them and not to the ‘higher’ Gods. The Christian concept of God was alien to the Karo and for many years it remained a mystery to them what the missionaries were trying to do.

 

 

Stange Toba sculpture with leaf-shaped hands and ears. It could be a debata idup:  a representation of the mythical ancestors, usually sculpted by twos, a male and a female figures. Each one has its own protective function.  © musée du quai Branly, Patrick Gries, Bruno Descoings , inv. 70.2001.27.194.

 

 

A major help for the missionaries was C.J. Westenberg, a colonial officer who worked among the Karo for many years (and married a Karo woman). Westenberg (1892) remained for many years the main source on Karo religion. He reported on Batara Guru as the main Karo God. Batara Guru was the God of the Upper World and married Teruh, who was the Goddess of the Lower World. The earth, as we know it now, did not yet exist. After four years of marriage there was still no child and Batara Guru became depressed. He decided to change his life and instead of the luxury life of an important God he now chose for the life of a hermit. Both he and his wife withdrew in a humble house and worked in the gardens. Suddenly their lives were disturbed by a huge monster, a seasnake or dragon, which destroyed all the gardens and the flowers they had planted. Batara Guru started a discussion with the monster and told him that he should not have destroyed the gardens and the flowers. The dragon answered that it was Batara Guru’s own fault since he had failed to create an offspring and to secure the continuation of his family. The dragon said that he could help Batara Guru and his wife and he gave instructions on how to create new life. One of his demands was to get offerings of bananas and other food. The dragon’s help was effective, for Batara Guru and his wife got three sons and three daughters. The second son, Benua Koling, created a Middle World with seven hands full of earth. However, the first son of Batara Guru, Paduka di Aji, lived in the Lower World and due to the creation of the earth his world became dark, which made him (the first son) very angry. He destroyed Benua Koling’s creation seven times and finally Batara Guru intervened. While Paduka di Aji was sleeping Batara Guru came down to the Lower World and captured his son with an iron grid made of four iron bars. When Paduka di Aji woke up and noticed that he was captured he became furious and tried to free himself. The earth moved and valleys and mountains were created, but Paduka di Aji did not succeed to free himself. Since then, earthquakes are attributed to an angry God of the Lower World.   The story about the creation of the earth explains the fact that the Karo divide the world of the God in three spheres: dibata di atas, dibata di tengah and dibata di teruh. There are, however, many spirits who seem to be unrelated to the worlds of the Gods. Westenberg (1892) goes on to explain role the spirits of deceased (begu) and shows that in actual daily life the spirits are much more important that the Gods. Most people do not know the stories about the Gods, but they take care of their behaviour towards the spirits; for the spirits can influences every day life and, when not happy, can threaten and even kill you. Begu can ask for food and when people do not meet the demands of the begu they can become ill. Therefore, the main task of a traditional healer is to identify which begu causes the disease and how the begu can be satisfied. The material expressions of Karo belief (pengulubalang, tunggal panaluan and tunggal malehat and different types of amulets) are also treated by Westenberg, but these will be discussed in the next part of this book. As mentioned above the Christianization of the Karo was a slow process. It was far from complete in the beginning of the 1980s: 12% were Moslems, 31% claimed to the Christian and 57 % remained faithful to the traditional religion (Beyer 1982, cited in Sibeth 1991: 64).

 

 

Amulet with figuratif and geometrical motifs.the © musée du quai Branly, Patrick Gries,  71.1885.3.19.

 

 

For the Toba we are mainly dependent on Warneck’s study on Die Religion der Batak (1909). Although there are certainly similarities with Karo religious views, there are also many differences. The major God of the Toba is Mula Jadi Na Bolon. He lives in the Upper World and has three sons: Batara Guru, Mangalabulan and Soripada. He also gets three daughters, whom will marry their own three brothers. The whole of mankind comes from these three couples and is therefore the result of incest; a theme that occurs more than once in Batak mythology. The Lower World is the living area of Naga Padoha, a serpentdragon. Among the Toba, a daughter of Batara Guru, is mentioned as the creator of the earth. She, Si Boru Deak Parujar, runs away from her future marriage partner and lets herself down by means of a spun thread to the watery area between the Upper World and the Lower World. She is unhappy in her unconfortable living conditions, but refuses to go back to the Upper Wold. Out of pity her grandfather, Mula Jadi Na Bolon, send her a handful of earth to live on. Si Boru Deak Parujar spreads out the earth and creates the world as we know it now. As with Karo religion we now encounter the theme of the struggle with the God of the Lower World. Naga Padoha is finally captured and imprisoned in an iron block. Whenever he moves an earthquake occurs.

 

 

Ritual object with a singa shape. The head of the animal is stylized with heart- shaped ears. A cavity is diug on its back and can be closed with a top. © musée du quai Branly, Patrick Gries, Valérie Torre, 70.2001.27.190.

 

Si Bori Deak Parujar finally marries the lizard-shaped son of Mangalabulan, the initial marriage partner intended for her, although by now he had changed his appearance by taking another name and another form. Their two children marry each other (again incest) and live on the Pusuk Buhit, a mountain west of Lake Toba. One their grandchildren is Si Raja Batak, the great ancestor of all the Batak. As mentioned above, the myths about the creation of the earth or the creation of mankind do not have a great impact on regular religious practices. Virtually no offerings are made to the Gods and many people do not have detailed knowledge of the stories about the Gods. Religious practices are much more related to controlling the spirits, a less abstract category of supernatural beings. I have mentioned already rituals around the tondi and the begu, but there are many other examples to be given. Rice rituals among the Karo, for example, are instrumental rituals, in the sense that they aim at achieving a specific goal: ‘to produce a good rice crop whose yield will last until the next harvest’ (Kipp 1987: 256). The ritual practices are directed towards three types of supernatural beings. First, it is important to please Beraspati Taneh, the Earth spirit who is sometimes represented as a lizard. Secondly, spirits related to natural phenomena such as mountains are addressed. Without their help there will be not enough water flowing to the ricefields. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, one has to pay attention to the spirit of the rice: Si Dayang or Beru Dayang. Si Dayang is the tendi of the rice and the ritual ‘aims to insure the health of the crop by keeping its soul “at home”. This is entirely analogous to Karo ideas about human health’ (Kipp 1987: 257).

 

 

 

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