11Story

07 May 2009

Tondi and Begu

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tondi and begu

 

We have now arrived at a subject that makes clear that we cannot understand Batak art, material culture and rituals by simply interpreting them with Western concepts. For centuries Western explorers and researchers have tried to define, unavoidably with their own European frame of reference, the Batak concepts tondi and begu (Toba language. They are called tendi and bégu in Karo). We now have a clearer picture of the two concepts than a hundred years ago, but even nowadays many questions remain unanswered and many contradictory data remain problematic in the ethnographic reports. Some of the problems are caused by Western prejudices, others by regional differences in the Batak area. Interpretation may even differ per village, showing that it is indeed impossible described the Batak as one group. Finally, there is the problem of the reliability of the informants. Particularly in early accounts of the Batak there are usually no explicit remarks about who the informants were and what position they had in society.

 

 

The body of the lizard is entirely engraved. This door was on the frontage of a sopo or a rice granary toba. In the Uluan area, in the south-east of the lake Toba, it was common that the sopo is decorated with carved ornaments. In 1974, some old doors decorated with lizards (ilik) were collected. The lizard, symbol of fertility, put the harvest under the protection of the goddess Boraspati nor Tano. © musée du quai Branly, photo Patrick Gries, Bruno Descoings, 70.2001.27.521.

 

 

There seems to be some agreement (Leertouwer 1977; Sibeth 1991) to define the tondi as life-soul. A tondi is given to a person before his or her birth by the God Mula Jadi Na Bolon. It determines to a large extent someone’s life. The demands of the tondi steer a person’s future, so sometimes gifts are given to the tondi to please it. A tondi can however sometimes leave the body. In such a case a person becomes ill and specific rituals have to be performed to attract the tondi back to the body. The separation of the tondi and the body is considered to be a dangerous situation. When they are separated too long, it inevitably results in a person’s death. Therefore, the main concern of local healers is to bring the tondi back to its body, since the success of the treatment depends on that. W.H. Rassers (1998: 96-97), who based himself mainly on Warneck’s important work (1909) on Batak religion, wrote the following about tondi: With the word tondi the Batak mean an impersonal spiritual essence which is mostly thought to be located in the upper world, from where it descends to earth, creating and maintaining life. People are generally thought to get a part of this, their personal tondi, at conception (Warneck 1909: 8). Obviously, for everything that lives, the first consideration is to keep the tondi as powerful as possible. All human endeavour, therefore, aims at doing that. The word “life” must be understood in a special way here as it is also thought of much more broadly than is usual in the west. On the other hand, the area in which the tondi is active is more narrowly defined. Thus, aside from people, particular possessors of tondi are most of the plants and several kinds of animals, but also certain material goods, tools and natural resources. All these beings and things “live”. Not all that lives has an equal amount of tondi and neither does the level of tondi remain constant in every being or thing, for it can increase and decrease. Finally, under certain circumstances, the tondi can be transferred from one being to another. In people there is a certain connection between the tondi and the body; it is called the body’s “lord and master”, or “the god one carries on one’s head”, and it is also said that the tondi looks like the person’s body or his shadow. (Warneck 1909: 2, 46, 54). On earth it is the special task of a tondi to protect the person’s body and property (Warneck 1909: 47).

 

 

Effigies, debata idup, Toba group © musée du quai Branly, photo Patrick Gries, Bruno Descoings, 70.2001.27.562.

 

 

When someone dies the begu is released. Where the tondi can be defined as the life-soul the begu can be seen as the death-soul of a person. Let us again cite Rassers (1998: 97): Opinion is divided about what happens to the tondi after death. Some say that it remains with the body but at the same time undergoes a radical spiritual change, and becomes a begu – that part of a person which continues to exist after death, the “rest of the personality”, the spectre or death–soul. The begu therefore is also called tondi ni na mate, the “tondi of the deceased”. More common, however, seems to be the belief that at the death of an individual, the tondi returns to the upper world in order to give to another organism later (Warneck 1909: 8, 14; Winkler 1925: 4-5). Especially Warneck’s informants unanimously and emphatically resist the notion that there could be a real connection between tondi and begu based on their identity. They are not very clear either on where the begu comes from at a person’s death, but say that the difference between the two “souls” is so fundamental that it is inconceivable to them that a tondi could ever change into a begu. In the meantime, it is certain that every person, both man and woman, becomes a begu at death, and that the begu feels itself closely tied to the human body; it loves it (Warneck 1909: 14) and has only left it for good when the bones are completely decayed. People are uncertain about where the begu prefers to be. Many say “in the realm of the dead”, but it is also thought to reside in the upper world. There is also the view that the begu seek a home in certain high ranking figures in the Batak religious system … , the so called “spirits to be honored”, the sombaon (Warneck 1909: 74, 82). Achim Sibeth (1991) also reports that it is possible for a begu to change status. When a family is financially capable of organising a large feast (horja), with pigs, cattle and/or buffaloes the begu of an important deceased member of the family can change position in the hierarchy of the spirits; a begu can become a sumangot and eventually a sombaon. For every step in the hierarchy a large feast has to be organized. The bones of the ancestor are dug up and reburied when the feast is finished.

 

L. Leertouwer (1977) wrote a detailed study of the European struggle with the Batak ideas about the ‘soul’. In early reports the differences in interpretations are often caused by a lack of knowledge and, as a consequence, by the use of various different words for aspects of Batak thought that overlap. The word begoe or bego is already used very early in the nineteenth century, but one also finds diebata (a more general word for gods) sumangat, sembahen (Von Rosenberg 1855) and sambaon. Very often writers did not know the exact details about what they were writing about. In the second half of the nineteenth century the information became more detailed, but that also often added to the confusion. Leertouwer cited and discussed Nommensen (the first missionary among the Toba) extensively (1977: 44-47), in particular his information on the seven tondi. He suggested that Nommensen was probably very eager to find entrances in Batak thought to preach the gospel and that he therefore described the seven tondi in biblical terms. Leertouwer also observed that Nommensen did not see the connection between six of his seven tondi. The first tondi is described as the tondi si gomgom, the “real soul of a human being”, but the next six are all related, in some way, to the placenta of a newborn child, which is buried under the house where the child was born. In other sources we find more detailled information on the importance of the placenta after birth (Winkler 1925: 166). In reality we may be dealing with only two tondi; the one of the living human being and the one of the placenta. The terms tondi and begu will come back regularly in this book and it is important to take good notice of them. Concepts such as these remind us that we are describing a culture which is quite different from the European background of the many writers about the Batak. The European, Cartesian separation of body and soul is too simple for the Batak. A major part of Batak art and material culture operates at the crossroad of the notions of body and soul, but these notions are interpreted in a very different way than in the European intellectual tradition.

 

 

 

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