TRANSFORMASI GAGASAN PEMBUATAN ULOS

STUDI ETNOARKEOLOGI PARTONUN DI PEMATANG SIANTAR
Defri Elias Simatupang
Balai Arkelogi Medan


Abstract
“Ulos” is a traditional clothes made by Batak People. The Perception for “partonun” (people whom made “ulos”) is about how ways they make it.This article want to explain the comparison their main idea from the past until now, using ethnoarchaeology approach.

Kata kunci: ulos, partonun, Batak Toba


I. Pendahuluan

Ulos adalah kain tradisional tenunan khas Batak. Ulos selalu digunakan dalam berbagai pesta dan upacara adat pada sub etnis Batak Toba. Sejarah awal mula pembuatan ulos belum diketahui dengan pasti. Yang jelas, setelah leluhur Orang Batak mengenal benang sebagai bahan baku pembuat ulos, yaitu kapas (Gossypium Hirsutum). Tanaman kapas itu dapat tumbuh baik di dataran tinggi seperti di daerah Toba Samosir, tanah leluhur orang Batak. Namun kuat dugaan pengetahuan akan tanaman kapas sebagai bahan baku benang bersumber dari masyarakat non Batak, sebagai satu bentuk interaksi dengan budaya asing yang mengakibatkan terjadinya transfer ilmu pengetahuan. Bisa saja pengetahuan membuat / menenun ulos telah ada ketika leluhur Orang Batak masuk dan mendiami tanah Batak.

Kota Pematang Siantar adalah salah satu kota di wilayah Provinsi Sumatera Utara. Pematang Siantar menjadi kota transit bagi orang-orang dari Tapanuli menuju daerah lain di Sumatera Timur. Sebagai salah satu kota terdekat parserakanni halak Batak (daerah perantauan orang Batak dari tanah leluhur), wajar saja bentuk-bentuk kebudayaan Batak di kota ini masih terasa kental pengaruhnya. Sebagai bukti: adanya sekitar seribu lebih penduduk kota ini bermata pencaharian sebagai penenun ulos yang biasa disebut partonun (siaran Ki radio, www.internews.com). Hampir setiap hari, ratusan lembar ulos terjual di pasar-pasar lokal seperti di Pasar Horas dan Pasar Dwikora Parluasan, belum lagi yang dikirim ke luar kota hingga ke luar pulau.


II. Etnoarkeologi

Tulisan ini mencoba membandingkan hubungan antara para partonun dengan ulos-ulos buatannya dengan menggunakan pendekatan etnoarkeologi. Tulisan ini diharapkan mampu menjelaskan kemungkinan ada - tidaknya terjadi transformasi budaya. Etnoarkeologi adalah Ilmu Arkeologi yang menggunakan data etnografi untuk menangani masalah-masalah Arkeologi (Mundarjito,1981:17). Etnoarkeologi berasal dari dua kata, yaitu arkeologi dan etnografi. Arkeologi secara populer didefenisikan sebagai ilmu yang bertujuan mengungkapkan kebudayaan manusia masa lampau, melalui benda-benda yang ditinggalkannya (Haryono,1984:5). Sedangkan etnografi adalah pendeskripsian suatu kebudayaan dengan tujuan mendapatkan pandangan hidup dari sudut pandang emik (pendukung kebudayaan yang dikaji / dideskripsi) atau sudut pandang etik (orang - orang dari luar kebudayaan yang dikaji/ dideskripsi) (Spradley,1997:3). Studi etnoarkeologi memiliki tiga lingkup penelitian yaitu rekonstruksi perilaku, proses taksonomi/ transformasi budaya, dan alat penentu strategi penelitian arkeologi. Tulisan ini khusus meneliti tentang proses transformasi budaya pada pembuatan ulos masa kini yang dibandingkan dengan pembuatan ulos masa dahulu. Data tentang partonun masa lampau bersumber dari data historis kebudayaan Orang Batak, meskipun data-data khusus tentang para partonun belum diperoleh secara terperinci.

Kata transformasi diartikan sebagai perubahan bentuk atau struktur dari sebuah bentuk ke bentuk lainnya (Partanto,2001:758). Pengamatan transformasi pada pembuatan ulos oleh para partonun didasari atas wujud-wujud budaya itu sendiri, meliputi: perubahan konsep ide/ gagasan para partonun, perubahan tingkah laku/ aktivitas menenun ulos, dan perubahan fisik ulos sebagai hasil aktivitas (data artefaktual). Dari ketiga wujud kebudayaan tersebut, tulisan ini hanya mengamati transformasi dari wujud ide/ gagasan saja. Hal ini dikarenakan masih kurangnya data terhadap dua wujud kebudayaan yang lain. Ada perbedaan tipis antara defenisi kata ide dan gagasan. Berdasarkan Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, ide adalah rancangan yang tersusun di dalam pikiran, sedangkan gagasan adalah hasil dari pikiran itu. Dengan kata lain gagasan sudah lebih kuat dibandingkan ide, karena gagasan sudah pasti menghasilkan perintah untuk beraktivitas sedangkan ide masih mengendap di alam pikiran manusia. Ulos adalah artefak hasil dari aktivitas yang berasal dari gagasan partonun. Tulisan ini akan melihat sejauh mana transformasi gagasan para partonun terhadap ulos itu sendiri dari masa lalu hingga masa kini seperti yang ditemukan di Kota Pematang Siantar.

III. Pembuatan Ulos

Ulos memiliki berbagai macam jenis, ukuran, cara pemakaian, dan tujuan pemakaiannya. Macam-macam jenisnya, antara lain : Ulos Sadum, Pinussaan, Mangiring, Bintang maratur, Sirara, Sitoluntuho, Bolean, Sumbat, Sibolang, Suri-suri, Tumtuman, Ragi Hotang, Ragi Pangko, Runjat, Djobit, Simarindjamisi, Ragi Hidup, dsb. Keanekaragaman nama-nama ulos tersebut dapat saja berbeda penyebutannya di suatu tempat dengan tempat lain. Namun pada prinsipnya masing-masing dapat diklasifikasikan berdasarkan bentuk gorga (ragam hias), ukuran serta tujuan pemakaiannya. Sedangkan untuk ukuran, pada masa kini ulos biasanya dibuat mulai dari ukuran kecil untuk anak-anak, sedang, hingga ukuran besar. Untuk cara pemakaian, ulos digunakan sebagai bahan pakaian, selendang/ selempang, dililitkan ke kepala, sebagai sabuk/ pengikat pinggang, dan sebagai alat menggendong anak (Marbun,1987:187--188).

Pengamatan terhadap para partonun di Pematang Siantar menunjukkan kalau pembuatan ulos menggunakan teknologi yang dalam dunia pertenunan dikenal dengan sebutan teknik ikat lungsi, yaitu: pembuatan ulos dengan cara mengikatkan benang yang disusun memanjang pada alat tenun. Tehnik bertenun dengan menggunakan teknik ikat lungsi juga dikenal luas pada masyarakat etnis Dayak Iban, Dayak Kantuk, Sumba, Flores Tanimbar, Toraja, dsb. Teknik ikat lungsi di Indonesia diduga datang dari daratan Asia Tenggara yaitu berupa alat tenun yang memakai kayu di pinggang dengan ragam hiasnya berbentuk geometris, pohon hayat dan manusia. (Chalid,2000:3--4). Berikut penjelasan singkat tentang alat-alat dan cara untuk membuat ulos, seperti yang dikenal dalam teknik ikat lungsi : 1. Terlebih dahulu benang dikeraskan memakai sejenis lem/ perekat dengan menggunakan alat yang dinamakan unggas dan pengunggasan, 2. Sesudah selesai diunggas, kemudian benang dikeringkan, lalu digulung dengan alat penghulhulan dengan cara memutar. Proses selanjutnya ialah bertenun (martonun), yakni dengan cara memasukkan benang ke dalam alat tenun yang terbuat dari kayu. Adapun bagian-bagian dari alat tenun adalah : hasoli (gulungan benang pada sebatang lidi sepanjang kira-kira 30 cm), turak (alat untuk memasukkan benang dari celah-celah benang yang ditenun, terbuat dari potongan bambu kecil menyerupai seruling yang ke dalamnya dimasukkan hasoli), hatudungan (alat untuk menggendorkan tenunan agar turak bisa dimasukkan), baliga (alat untuk merapatkan benang yang telah dimasukkan dengan cara menekan sampai beberapa kali, terbuat dari batang enau yang telah dihaluskan), dan pamunggung alat yang berbentuk busur panah, pada sisi kanan dan kiri terdapat tali untuk ditarik-tarik saat menenun. Bagian-bagian dari alat tenun itu merupakan satu kesatuan (unit) yang tidak bisa dipisah-pisahkan satu sama lain selama proses menenun (Sitanggang,1990:52--53). Selembar ulos membutuhkan banyak benang dengan aneka warna, yang nantinya masing-masing benang telah digulung dalam hasoli. Hasoli-hasoli itulah yang kemudian masuk didalam turak kemudian turak keluar masuk diantara benang - benang yang sudah direntangkan sebagai bakal ulos. Begitu terus-menerus proses mengerjakan ulos hingga rentangan benang-benang itu sedikit demi sedikit berubah menjadi kain. Selama masa bertenun tubuh si partonun terikat dengan peralatan tenun, sehingga tidak dapat bergerak dengan leluasa. Biasanya alat-alat tenun itu akan dilepaskan kalau si partonun hendak istirahat atau mau melakukan pekerjaan yang lain. Ketekunan seorang partonun menentukan lama-tidaknya sebuah ulos selesai dibuat. Biasanya butuh tiga - enam pekan untuk menyelesaikan Ulos Ragi Hidup sepanjang tiga meter (wawancara dengan M. br. Sipayung).

IV. Transformasi gagasan pembuatan ulos

Pada masa lalu, leluhur Orang Batak hidup di pegunungan yang jauh dari atas permukaan laut. Karena iklim yang dingin, mereka mendapatkan rasa hangat yang bersumber dari sinar matahari di siang hari dan perapian (kayu - kayu yang dibakar) di malam hari. Namun pada malam hari ketika sedang tidur, perapian tidak praktis digunakan karena resiko dapat berakibat terjadinya kebakaran. Kebutuhan mencari rasa hangat terutama pada malam hari adalah salah satu tuntutan hidup mereka. Maka secara alamiah berbagai ide muncul dalam pikiran untuk mampu menjawab tuntutan itu. Kemudian berbagai usaha pasti dilakukan untuk menemukan solusi. Kebutuhan akan pakaian adalah solusi yang mereka cari sebagaimana di tempat lain juga demikian. Pengetahuan pembuatan pakaian dimulai dari bahan - bahan yang masih sangat sederhana, seperti kulit kayu, kulit binatang, daun-daunan, dsb, sampai pada akhirnya tercipta ulos.

Ulos menjadi puncak kebudayaan materi (artefak) hasil akhir dari siklus wujud kebudayaan, yang berawal dari ide/ gagasan - melakukan usaha pekerjaan yang berkembang sebagai sebuah teknologi - hingga akhirnya menghasilkan artefak (ulos itu sendiri). Pasca ditemukannya ulos, masyarakat Batak Toba menjadikannya sebagai sebuah keterampilan yang umumnya dikuasai oleh para wanita dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Namun pada masa ini, pekerjaan membuat ulos bukan menjadi pekerjaan utama, karena mata pencaharian utama masih di sektor pertanian. Mereka membuat ulos disela-sela waktu pekerjaan utama. Terutama bagi para ibu yang menjaga rumah dan anak-anak mereka. Istilah partonun pada masa ini belum tepat dipredikatkan pada mereka, karena pada masa ini membuat ulos belum menjadi sebuah profesi.
Fungsi ulos di masa awalnya hanya digunakan sebagai penghangat tubuh. Kemudian bertambah fungsinya menjadi benda hadiah bagi orang-orang yang mereka sayangi. Pada masa ulos berfungsi sebagai benda hadiah, ulos mulai masuk sebagai bagian paralatan adat yang sakral dengan aturan - aturan baku penggunaannya. Ide yang berkembang terhadap tehnik pembuatan ulos masa ini diduga menjadi puncak kebudayaan penenunan ulos. Profesi partonun sudah dikenal pada masa ini, khususnya bagi mereka yang dikenal terampil membuat ulos yang bernilai seni yang tinggi. Partonun seakan-akan berlomba mengekspresikan ungkapan kasih sayangnya kepada si bakal penerima ulos dengan membuat ulos sebaik mungkin. Tanpa disadari hasil kreativitas seni para partonun tersebut menghasilkan berbagai jenis ulos yang dikemudian hari memiliki nama dan aturan pemakaian yang berbeda-beda.

Partonun pada masa awal munculnya berbagai jenis ulos lebih tepat disebut sebagai seniman ulos karena menggabungkan antara tehnik pembuatan ulos dengan system religi masyarakat Batak Toba. Asumsi ini dibuat karena ulos masuk ke dalam konteks artefak perlambangan akan sesuatu maksud/ tujuan yang tidak harus dibuat atas dasar hubungan empiris saja. Ulos berhubungan dengan ide/ gagasan yang terelaborasi dalam kehidupan religiusitas Orang Batak masa dahulu yang kompleks (Sumardjo,2002:134--136). Ulos bukan hanya benda lambang, tetapi ulos merupakan manifestasi kehidupan religi yang terlambangkan oleh si pembuat (partonun) pada masa ini. Itu sebabnya ragam hias pada ulos umum dipakai dalam lambang-lambang religi lama di berbagai etnis di Indonesia. Tidak dapat dipastikan kalau hal itu merupakan "peniruan" bentuk-bentuk yang empirik, yang kemudian digeneralisasi oleh para pengamat masa kini (seperti gambar manusia, binatang, tumbuhan selalu ada pada kain-kain tenunan tradisional).

Ulos menjadi tidak sekedar kain biasa pada masa dahulu tetapi menjadi alat pemberian rahmat, berkat, perlindungan dari pihak hula-hula kepada pihak boru sebagaimana yang diamanatkan secara turun-temurun melalui sistem kekerabatan yang disebut dalihan na tolu. Dalihan natolu secara harafiah berarti ”tungku berkaki tiga”. Ia dipakai sebagai simbol sistem hubungan sosial masyarakat Batak Toba yang terdiri dari tiga kelompok unsur kekerabatan, yaitu : hula-hula, dongan tubu, dan boru. Pihak hula-hula adalah kelompok orang, yang posisinya "di atas", yaitu keluarga dari marga pihak perempuan yang harus dihormati oleh marga-marga yang memperistrikan atau memiliki ibu yang berasal dari marga pihak perempuan tersebut.

Pihak marga yang memperistrikan atau memiliki ibu dari marga pihak perempuan tersebut dinamakan sebagai pihak boru yaitu kelompok orang-orang yang posisinya "di bawah". Sedangkan pihak dongan tubu, yaitu kelompok orang yang posisinya "sejajar", yaitu : teman atau saudara semarga yang diharuskan untuk selalu menjaga persaudaraan agar terhindar dari perseteruan (Siahaan,1964:36--38, Simanjuntak, 2002:93--102). Dalihan na tolu bukanlah kasta karena setiap orang Batak memiliki ketiga posisi tersebut. Ada saatnya menjadi hula-hula, ada saatnya menempati posisi dongan tubu dan ada saatnya menjadi boru. Hingga kini setiap upacara adat ulos digunakan sebagai alat oleh pihak hula-hula untuk menyatakan rasa sayangnya kepada pihak boru. Ini merupakan salah satu bagian dari prinsip dalihan natolu (tiga falsafah hidup bersosial sesama Orang Batak), yaitu prisip elek marboru (penuh cinta kepada pihak boru). Falsafah itu diungkapkan dengan memberikan ulos oleh pihak hula-hula kepada pihak boru yang disebut mangulosi.

Pengamatan di masa kini, seperti di Kota Pematang Siantar ulos diperjual-belikan di pasaran tak ubahnya seperti barang dagangan biasa. Kedalaman makna filosofis dari selembar ulos telah berkurang dan cenderung lebih dinilai dari sudut pandang ekonomi. Harga selembar ulos dimulai dari harga dua puluh ribu sampai bisa mencapai jutaan rupiah (seperti dijual di Jakarta). Di balik tingginya nilai dan harga sebuah ulos, justru banyak partonun tingkat perekonomiannya masih kekurangan. Status sosial merekapun dianggap rendah sama seperti buruh upahan. Keadaan mereka diperparah lagi karena faktor penentu harga ulos ada di tangan para tokeh/ parkilang (distributor ulos ke pasaran, biasanya mereka memiliki sejumlah alat tenun dengan para partonun yang mereka gaji). Ani, seorang partonun di Pematang Siantar yang sudah lebih sepuluh tahun membuat ulos, mengatakan meskipun harga benang naik, upah partonun belum tentu bisa ikut naik. Ada saja alasan para tokeh/parkilang mengatakan kalau masih banyak ulos yang belum laku dijual menumpuk di gudang (wawancara Ki Radio terhadap informan, www.internews.com).

V. Penutup

Pembuatan ulos masa kini bila dibandingkan dengan masa-masa terdahulu terindikasi mengalami transformasi budaya. Transformasi dilihat pada gagasan partonun dari mulai masa lampau hingga masa kini. Di masa terdahulu gagasan membuat ulos adalah untuk sebuah tuntutan pemenuhan kebutuhan akan pakaian. Pada masa ini partonun bukan pekerjaan utama, tetapi hanya sebuah keterampilan yang umum dikuasai oleh para wanita Batak. Kemudian masa selanjutnya gagasan pembuatan ulos bertambah tujuan, yaitu untuk dijadikan sebagai hadiah dari pihak hula-hula kepada pihak boru yang diekspresikan dalam setiap aktivitas kehidupan religi adat Batak. Pada masa inilah partonun lebih tepat dikatakan seniman ulos karena membuat ulos yang bernilai seni yang tinggi sesuai dengan makna filosofis kehidupan religi masyarakat Batak Toba. Kemudian masa selanjutnya yaitu masa kini gagasan pembuatan ulos berubah menjadi usaha pelestarian warisan kebudayaan leluhur orang Batak. Sehingga sepantasnya partonun adalah sebuah pekerjaan yang membanggakan.

Di Pematang Siantar banyak partonun bekerja pada pemilik modal besar sehingga upah mereka sepenuhnya ditentukan oleh si pemiliki usaha. Tingkat perekonomian dan pendidikan formal partonun yang masih rendah mengakibatkan rendahnya daya saing pekerjaan untuk kemajuan usaha mereka. Muncul kekhawatiran kalau gagasan partonun membuat ulos pada masa yang akan datang hanya sekedar pekerjaan mendapatkan uang, maka nilai kebanggaan sebagai partonun akan semakin rendah. Pemerintah dan para tokeh/ parkilang sepatutnya berkoordinasi untuk memikirkan cara terbaik untuk peningkatan kesejahteraan mereka. Usaha mengejar kekayaan materi dan status sosial sepatutnya sejalan dengan usaha pelestarian kebudayaan warisan leluhur. Bila partonun sejahtera, tentu mereka akan bangga atas usaha dan sadar akan pelestariaan pekerjaan menenun ulos sebagai warisan kebudayaan leluhur orang Batak.

Kepustakaan

1. Chalid, Suhardini, 2000. Tenun Ikat Indonesia. Jakarta: Museum Nasional
2. http://www.nainggolan.net/ulos.htm
3. http://www.internews.com, download siaran Ki Radio tentang kehidupan Partonun di P. Sinatar
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15. Sumardjo, Jakob, 2002. Arkeologi Budaya Indonesia, Pelacakan Hermeneutis – Historis terhadap Artefak-Artefak Kebudayaan Indonesia. Yogyakarta: CV.Qalam

Informan
M. br. Sipayung (67thn), pedagang ulos di Pasar Horas P.Siantar. Wawancara dilakukan beberapa kali dari tanggal 6-18 Juni 2005 di tempat beliau berjualan ulos. Hasil wawancara yang didapatkan : pengetahuan tentang ulos, jenis-jenis ulos yang dijual beserta harganya.

Akhir Perjalanan Sejarah Barus

Kompas, 1 April 2005


BARUS, sebuah nama daerah terpencil di pesisir pantai barat Sumatera Utara. Tetapi, sejarah daerah ini sebenarnya sangat tua, setua ketika kapal-kapal asing beribu tahun sebelum Masehi singgah mencari kapur barus di sana. Dari Barus pula, agama Islam dan Kristen pertama-tama dikenalkan ke seluruh Nusantara.

BARUS atau biasa disebut Fansur barangkali satu-satunya kota di Nusantara yang namanya telah disebut sejak awal abad Masehi oleh literatur-literatur dalam berbagai bahasa, seperti dalam bahasa Yunani, Siriah, Armenia, Arab, India, Tamil, China, Melayu, dan Jawa.

Berita tentang kejayaan Barus sebagai bandar niaga internasional dikuatkan oleh sebuah peta kuno yang dibuat oleh Claudius Ptolemaus, seorang gubernur dari Kerajaan Yunani yang berpusat di Alexandria, Mesir, pada abad ke-2.

Di peta itu disebutkan, di pesisir barat Sumatera terdapat sebuah bandar niaga bernama Barousai (Barus) yang menghasilkan wewangian dari kapur barus. Diceritakan, kapur barus yang diolah dari kayu kamfer dari Barousai itu merupakan salah satu bahan pembalseman mayat pada zaman kekuasaan Firaun sejak Ramses II, atau sekitar 5.000 tahun sebelum Masehi.

Berdasakan buku Nuchbatuddar tulisan Addimasqi, Barus juga dikenal sebagai daerah awal masuknya agama Islam sekitar abad ke-7. Makam tua di kompleks pemakaman Mahligai, Barus yang di batu nisannya tertulis Syekh Rukunuddin wafat tahun 672 Masehi atau 48 Hijriah, menguatkan adanya komunitas Muslim di daerah ini pada era itu.

Dewan Gereja-gereja di Indonesia juga memercayai sejak tahun 645 Masehi di daerah Barus telah masuk umat Kristen dari sekte Nestorian. Keyakinan tersebut didasarkan pada buku kuno tulisan Shaikh Abu Salih al-Armini. Sementara itu, penjelajah dari Armenia Mabousahl mencatat bahwa pada abad ke-12 telah terdapat Gereja Nestorian.

Penggalian arkeologi yang dilakukan oleh Daniel Perret dan kawan-kawannya dari Ecole francaise d’Extreme-Orient (EFEO) Perancis bekerja sama dengan peneliti Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional (PPAN) di Lobu Tua, Barus, membuktikan pada abad IX-XII perkampungan multietnis dari suku Tamil, China, Arab, Aceh, Jawa, Batak, Minangkabau, Bugis, Bengkulu, dan sebagainya juga telah ada di sana. Perkampungan tersebut dikabarkan sangat makmur mengingat banyaknya barang-barang berkualitas tinggi yang ditemukan.

Pada tahun 1872, pejabat Belanda, GJJ Deutz, menemukan batu bersurat tulisan Tamil. Tahun 1931 Prof Dr K A Nilakanta Sastri dari Universitas Madras, India, menerjemahkannya. Menurutnya, batu bertulis itu bertahun Saka 1010 atau 1088 Masehi di zaman pemerintahan Raja Cola yang menguasai wilayah Tamil, India Selatan. Tulisan itu antara lain menyebutkan tentang perkumpulan dagang suku Tamil sebanyak 1.500 orang di Lobu Tua yang memiliki pasukan keamanan, aturan perdagangan, dan ketentuan lainnya.

Namun, Lobu Tua yang merupakan kawasan multietnis di Barus ditinggalkan secara mendadak oleh penghuninya pada awal abad ke-12 sesudah kota tersebut diserang oleh kelompok yang dinamakan Gergasi.

"Berdasarkan data tidak adanya satu benda arkeologi yang dihasilkan setelah awal abad ke-12. Namun, para ahli sejarah sampai saat ini belum bisa mengidentifikasi tentang sosok Gergasi ini," papar Lucas Partanda Koestoro, Kepala Balai Arkeologi Medan.

Setelah ditinggalkan oleh komunitas multietnis tersebut, Barus kemudian dihuni oleh orang-orang Batak yang datang dari kawasan sebelah utara kota ini. Situs Bukit Hasang merupakan situs Barus yang berkembang sesudah penghancuran Lobu Tua.

Sampai misi dagang Portugis dan Belanda masuk, peran Barus yang saat itu telah dikuasai raja-raja Batak sebenarnya masih dianggap menonjol sehingga menjadi rebutan kedua penjajah dari Eropa tersebut. Penjelajah Portugis Tome Pires yang melakukan perjalanan ke Barus awal abad ke-16 mencatat Barus sebagai pelabuhan yang ramai dan makmur.

"Kami sekarang harus bercerita tentang Kerajaan Barus yang sangat kaya itu, yang juga dinamakan Panchur atau Pansur. Orang Gujarat menamakannya Panchur, juga bangsa Parsi, Arab, Bengali, Keling, dst. Di Sumatera namanya Baros (Baruus). Yang dibicarakan ini satu kerajaan, bukan dua," demikian catatan Pires.

Tahun 1550, Belanda berhasil merebut hegemoni perdagangan di daerah Barus. Dan pada tahun 1618, VOC, kongsi dagang Belanda, mendapatkan hak istimewa perdagangan dari raja-raja Barus, melebihi hak yang diberikan kepada bangsa China, India, Persia, dan Mesir.

Belakangan, hegemoni Belanda ini menyebabkan pedagang dari daerah lain menyingkir. Dan sepak terjang Belanda juga mulai merugikan penduduk dan raja-raja Barus sehingga memunculkan perselisihan. Tahun 1694, Raja Barus Mudik menyerang kedudukan VOC di Pasar Barus sehingga banyak korban tewas. Raja Barus Mudik bernama Munawarsyah alias Minuassa kemudian ditangkap Belanda, lalu diasingkan ke Singkil, Aceh.

Perlawanan rakyat terhadap Belanda dilanjutkan di bawah pimpinan Panglima Saidi Marah. Gubernur Jenderal Belanda di Batavia kemudian mengirim perwira andalannya, Letnan Kolonel Johan Jacob Roeps, ke Barus. Pada tahun 1840, Letkol Roeps berhasil ditewaskan pasukan Saidi Marah, yang bergabung dengan pasukan Aceh dan pasukan Raja Sisingamangaraja dari wilayah utara Barus Raya.

Namun, pamor Barus sudah telanjur menurun karena saat Barus diselimuti konflik, para pedagang beralih ke pelabuhan Sunda Kelapa, Surabaya, dan Makassar. Sementara, pedagang-pedagang dari Inggris memilih mengangkut hasil bumi dari pelabuhan Sibolga.

Barus semakin tenggelam saat Kerajaan Aceh Darussalam berdiri pada permulaan abad ke-17. Kerajaan baru tersebut membangun pelabuhan yang lebih strategis untuk jalur perdagangan, yaitu di pantai timur Sumatera, berhadapan dengan Selat Melaka.

Pesatnya teknologi pembuatan kapur barus sintetis di Eropa juga dianggap sebagai salah satu faktor memudarnya Barus dalam peta perdagangan dunia. Pada awal abad ke-18, Barus benar-benar tenggelam dan menjadi pelabuhan sunyi yang terpencil.

Kehancuran Barus kian jelas ketika pada tanggal 29 Desember 1948, kota ini dibumihanguskan oleh pejuang kemerdekaan Indonesia karena Belanda yang telah menguasai Sibolga dikabarkan akan segera menuju Barus.

>small 2small 0<, Barus yang berjarak 414 km dari Medan benar-benar dilupakan. Pemerintah lebih tertarik mengembangkan perdagangan di kawasan pantai timur Sumatera, khususnya di sekitar Selat Malaka, dengan pusatnya di Batam dan Medan.

Dominasi pembangunan pantai timur ini bisa dilihat pengiriman hasil bumi dari pedalaman pantai barat Sumatera yang harus melalui jalur darat untuk kemudian dibawa dengan kapal dari pelabuhan Belawan, Medan.

Sedangkan untuk melayani arus perdagangan skala lokal di kawasan pantai barat Sumatera, pemerintah lebih tertarik mengembangkan pelabuhan yang lebih baru seperti Singkil di utara dan Sibolga di selatan. Kehebatan Barus sebagai bandar internasional benar-benar dilupakan.

Kini, Barus tak lebih dari kota kecamatan lain di daerah pinggiran yang hampir-hampir tak tersentuh roda pembangunan. Sebagian warganya meninggalkan desa, mencari pekerjaan atau pendidikan di luar daerah.

"Kami yang tinggal di sini hanyalah warga sisa. Yang sukses atau yang berpendidikan enggan menetap di sini. Kota ini telah berhenti, tak ada dinamika, tak ada investasi," kata Camat Barus Hotmauli Sitompul. (AHMAD ARIF)

The Batak millenarian response to the colonial order.

Source: Journal of Southeast Asian Studies
Publication Date: 09/01/1994
Author: Hirosue, Masashi
COPYRIGHT 1994 Cambridge University Press


Introduction

One of the central problems that faced Third World peoples under European colonial rule was how to reform distorted power relations between the colonial and indigenous entities. Although indigenous peoples were generally forced to recognize the superiority of European power, the newly introduced colonial order often frustrated them. The millenarian movement(1) is one type of endeavour to overcome this dilemma by constructing a new socio-cultural order legitimized by a source of power which prophetic leaders insisted ruled their world.

Scholars have dealt with millenarian movements as key examples of social protest primarily under colonial regimes.(2) Studies of Southeast Asia have also paid attention to this type of movement, and many scholars have tried to explain what factors drew followers to such a movement, to the point of sometimes driving them into rebellion. The generally accepted explanations so far have included the propositions that societies were socially or culturally distorted by the influence of colonialism, that people were on the verge of a subsistence crisis,(3) or that they had no alternative but to resort to millenarian solutions to change their situations.(4) They were drawn to such movements by charismatic leaders or prophets who showed them a millenarian vision.(5) This millenarian vision was generally a restoration of the idealized traditional world with the total transformation of the existing order and the expulsion of the Europeans.(6) Millenarian leaders were able to articulate their belief through their supernatural or magical powers.(7) They had contacts with deities or holy spirits, and their preachings were sanctioned by these supernatural forces.(8)

However, such definitions have not given a full answer to the basic question of why it was that only certain leaders were able to organize these movements. There were many people who longed for the restoration of a traditional order and who claimed to communicate with deities or holy spirits. Around them there must have been many more who were dissatisfied with the existing order. In the Batak area of Sumatra, which is the subject of this paper, there were numerous magicians who were believed to have superhuman abilities and to make contact with deities or ancestral spirits.(9) However, only a certain type of religious leader was able to organize the millenarian movement in that region.

The basic problem with conventional scholarly explanations is that they have not sufficiently examined the prophets' new messages and the terms the prophets used in order to share their millenarian vision with their followers.(10) Although the existing literature explains that such religious leaders displayed magical or supernatural powers, it has not made clear what these powers represented. These leaders were unlikely to be able to draw people to millenarian movements through their magical or divine abilities based on their indigenous magico-religious belief system, because people often no longer relied on their traditional systems of religious belief, which had been distorted by colonialism. In order to change the existing order totally, millenarian leaders needed to show the people new visions of their world in transformation.

In order better to understand millenarian leadership, it is interesting to look at the religious movements which arose in the Batak area of north Sumatra beginning in 1890. The movements, called "Parmalim" and "Parhudamdam", arose as responses to colonization and Christianization. The leaders of these movements preached a kind of "millenarian" vision, that promised the restoration of the kingdom of Si Singa Mangaraja, a Batak holy king who had been driven away from his own territory by the Dutch colonial army in 1883. These religious movements often developed into protests against the colonial order.

The point I would like to draw from the Batak case is that the only leaders who were able to organize movements were those whose doctrine appeared to give access to a source of power, a central principle which appeared to animate their changing world. The millenarian leaders saw their main task as reconstructing the socio-cultural system distorted by unbalanced power relations between the indigenous and the external. They had to show what the real source of power was and also how they were able to gain access to it. In order to explain more clearly the role of prophets in millenarian movements, I will classify these leaders into two types,(11) depending on their approach.

The first type of leader is one with strong roots in his traditional cultural system, who found a means to harness the new source of power in traditional terms. For example, Guru Somalaing founded the Parmalim movement after receiving a revelation from "Jahoba" [Jehova] through a dream, the typical Batak way to receive divine inspiration.(12) His doctrine consisted basically of traditional Batak ethics. The important point is that he found a Toba-Batak way to gain access to the new power, "Jahoba".

The second type of leader is one who at first involved himself in a new environment such as missionary education, the Christian Church, or a job in the modern sector of the economy, such as colonial public service or a plantation company. Some leaders of this type later returned to traditional religion, having found a way to understand it in new terms. One major leader of the Parmalim movement in its later stages, and all the Parhudamdam leaders, were of this type. After they found that the Christian Church could not satisfactorily initiate Toba-Batak into the essential principle of the world (the mysterious power which animated Dutch guns, steamships and telegraphs), they started to reconsider traditional belief. Then they established new religions by revitalizing the indigenous High God as their source of power through Christian or Islamic terms.(13) Leaders of this type revived beliefs in their traditional High God or deities by giving modern meaning to them.

The difference between these two types of leader lies in the way they articulated their doctrines to their followers. To attract people who still had their roots in the indigenous cultural system, the first type of leader had to articulate his millenarian vision in traditional terms, while at the same time showing how he could gain access to the power of the colonial dominating force. To appeal to people whose traditional religious belief system was already somewhat distorted, leaders of the second type had to use new terms to explain their ideas. Once the foreign powers had proved to be unreliable allies, a revitalized traditional source of power could often provide a unitary symbol for their anti-colonialism.

This paper deals primarily with the first of these two patterns, the indigenous leader who gained access to the new external power, using the earlier stage of the Parmalim movement to provide a case study.

The materials which I have used to analyse the Parmalim movement are mainly the testimonies of leaders, in addition to colonial and missionary reports. In order to understand the role of prophets, their own testimonies are especially helpful. As these personal statements were made only after arrest by the colonial authorities,(14) we must recognize the danger that they may have modified their anti-colonial sentiments. However, because the Parmalim leaders believed that they were obliged under God to preach their belief to the world, which also encompassed the Dutch, their basic ideas appear to be consistently upheld in their testimonies. Dutch colonial officials and German missionaries also referred frequently to the movement, although each was concerned with a specific aspect of it. However, together they give us relatively abundant information about the movement.

Besides these three types of source material, description by explorers or travellers and vernacular materials are also helpful. Explorers and travellers were relatively detached and objective. In particular, E. Modigliani, who travelled through the upper Asahan area from December 1890 till January 1891 guided by Guru Somalaing, gives us interesting information on this leader.(15) Most of the vernacular materials about the movement were written by Batak colonial officials and Christians.(16) Although their perspective is often narrow, their statements help us to understand the movement at the local level. I was able to find very little material produced by followers of the Parmalim movement; however, I believe the data from all the above source are sufficient to sustain the argument I will advance.

The Rise of the Parmalim Movement

Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, the northern part of the Batak area had successfully maintained its social order. The Batak people, whose population was about three quarters of a million at the beginning of the twentieth century,(17) are an Austronesian-speaking population living in the northern part of Sumatra. Some of the Batak inhabited mountainous highland, living by slash and burn cultivation, while others lived in river valleys and the low land around Lake Toba, cultivating sawah (wet-rice fields). The Batak are usually divided into six sub-groups: Toba, Karo, Dairi, Simalungun, Angkola and Mandailing.(18) The Toba-Batak, the largest sub-group, and the focus of this paper, were settled on the island of Samosir and from the south-western and south-eastern sides of Lake Toba clown to the west coast. Difficult access to the inner Batak area from the coasts due to steep hillsides, the fact that the region produced little of commercial value except a few forest products, and the reputation of the Batak for cannibalism helped the Batak world remain relatively undisturbed by external powers, at least from the seventeenth till the beginning of the nineteenth century.(19)

Traditional Toba-Batak society was organized around its own religion with some ancient Hindu influences and a bit of Islam. The Batak originally shared with other Indonesian peoples basic ideas about the nature of life and death (so called "animism"), and a cosmological dualism of the upperworld and underworld.(20) They believed that all beings in the world had tondi (souls). Batak perceived tondi as independent entities and believed that the tondi of a man determined his life. In order to maintain and enlarge his tondi-power (sahala), a Batak would seek the advice of a datu (magician). Datu had much knowledge of the Batak sacred and medical texts, and were also able to make contact with ancestral spirits and deities.(21) Datu were regarded highly as persons who had much knowledge about religious affairs and could share supernatural power. The skill of the datu (hadatuon) was also resorted to when a community was suffering from such calamities as disease, drought and a poor harvest, or when it was going into battle against other villagers or family groups.

The founder of the Parmalim movement, Guru Somalaing, had been a well-known datu among the Toba-Batak. He had been a typical upholder of Toba-Batak traditional culture. However, he later acknowledged the superior power of the Dutch and the Christian Church. Establishing a new religion was the outcome of his quest for the best way to share this new power.

Before he started to preach a new doctrine, Guru Somalaing had been an advisor of Si Singa Mangaraja, a Batak holy king who had been revered as an incarnation of Batara Guru, a son of the Batak High God. Si Singa Mangaraja was believed to have the superhuman abilities to control rice-growing, to summon rain, and to drive evil spirits away.(22) Although Europeans usually defined Si Singa Mangaraja as a priest-king or a spiritual leader with no significant secular power,(23) the Toba-Batak not only prayed to Si Singa Mangaraja for his magical power, but also requested him to arbitrate disputes among them. The special importance of Si Singa Mangaraja lay in his role in maintaining stable relations between the Batak world and the outside world. From the seventeenth till the nineteenth centuries, Barus and Asahan were the two most important outlets for the Toba-Batak. Si Singa Mangaraja was on good terms with the ruler of Barus Hilir (Downstream Barus) and the Sultan of Asahan.(24) When relations between the inner and the outer world were disturbed, Si Singa Mangaraja played a major role in preserving the world order. Nevertheless, since Si Singa Mangaraja's sacred status was based on Batak religious concepts, he could not disregard the opinions of the datu who had had a far longer history in Batak religious affairs than he.

After intervening in the Padri movement, the Dutch established their rule in Minangkabau and the southern part of the Batak area during the mid-1830s. As the colonial government extended its influence to Mandailing, Angkola and Sibolga in the 1840s and 50s, the southern part of the Toba-Batak area became firmly linked commercially to the colonized areas.(25) Under such circumstances, the Dutch government allowed the German missionary society of Rheinischen Missions-Gesellschaft to start missionary work in the Batak area in 1861. By the mid-1870s, several missionary stations were established in the southern part of Toba with the support of local chiefs, who tried to extend their power through firm connections with the Dutch.(26)

However, other chieftains in the northern part of Toba were afraid that the power balance between them and the chieftains who accepted the missionaries would be upset. They urged Si Singa Mangaraja XII to drive the missionaries away from Toba. With their support Si Singa Mangaraja started a war against the Europeans in 1878.(27)

Somalaing joined the war and became advisor to Si Singa Mangaraja. Somalaing played an important role in uniting the people around Lake Toba to fight under the banner of Si Singa Mangaraja against the colonial and Christian penetration. However, in 1878 and 1883, the army of Si Singa Mangaraja was defeated twice by the colonial army, which was better armed with guns. After the battle of 1883, which marked the defeat of Si Singa Mangaraja, the dominance of the Dutch and the Christian Church over Toba-Batak society was established. Si Singa Mangaraja himself was wounded in the battle and had to flee from his home at Bakkara. In due course, it seems that there arose some discord between Somalaing and Si Singa Mangaraja over whether to continue fighting. Somalaing recognized the superiority of the Dutch and the Christian Church and withdrew from the war leaving Si Singa Mangaraja to fend for himself.(28)

Somalaing now faced a dilemma. He recognized that the Dutch colonial goverment and the Christian Church would not be driven away easily, yet he also saw the disruption they were causing in Batak society. Many chieftains and datu who had at first sided with Si Singa Mangaraja later accepted Christianity and Dutch rule, seeking a share in that mysterious power which had brought about their defeat. Neither the Christian Church nor the colonial goverment could operate without support from the local elites, and most of the influential chieftains who became Christians were appointed district, sub-district, or village heads by the colonial authorities.(29) Some newly converted datu became parish elders or helpers of the German missionaries.(30) However, Somalaing could not cast himself into this new regime. In his testimony, he complained of the inflation of the power of Batak chieftains under colonialism.(31) After gaining the sanction of the colonial authorities, they became more oppressive than before towards their subordinates and towards the chieftains who did not receive positions in the Dutch scheme, although they had previously been autonomous rulers. Concerning missionary activities, he complained of the abolition of the Toba-Batak custom in which a married man would take the widow of his brother as his second wife. Somalaing thought that on the whole the traditional society was better than the new European-influenced one. In short, he faced a contradiction between the irresistible power of the new order and the social disruption to which it gave rise.

After reflecting on this dilemma, Somalaing received a revelation from God, who, he later said, showed him the best way to share the power which had brought Dutch rule and Christianity to the Batak area.

I thought over these affairs and how to bring improvement on them. Then the Lord Jesus appeared in my retreat and while my body remained on the earth, my soul was raised to heaven by him and brought before God. This gave me to understand that I am the "anggini Tuhan", the brother of the Lord. By the Lord, I was sent in order to preach a new doctrine to the people, so that my followers would be the permalims.(32)

Somalaing claimed that he was brought to heaven by Jesus and was ordered to preach a new doctrine by God. The god who gave Somalaing this order was not the Batak High God, Debata Mulajadi Na Bolon. According to Somalaing, it was Jehova and he insisted that his God was the same as that of the Christians.(33) However, his path of access to God was not a modern Christian way, but rather a traditional Batak one. In Batak religion a datu frequently received messages from deities in dreams or visions.(34)

The doctrine which Jehova ordered him to preach was, according to his own account: pay respect to the elders; never tell a lie; do not partake of dog's meat or pork, or of the meat or the blood of animals which had died of illness; and purify both soul and body. These were not especially new ideas, and generally reflected traditional Toba-Batak morals. Somalaing's followers, who were to be called Parmalim, were "the people who endeavour to be holy or to be pure". The word Parmalim is derived from the Arabic word "muallim", which means a religious leader. However, among the Toba-Batak the word "malim" seems to have changed over the centuries into the meaning of "holy" or "pure". For instance, in one prayer Si Singa Mangaraja was referred to as "raja na pitu hali malim"(35) (raja who is sevenfold holy). This holy raja Si Singa Mangaraja and his appointed sacrifice-priests (parbaringin) did not consume either dog's meat or pork.(36) Islamic ideas had spread from Barus to the Toba area centuries earlier, and avoiding pork and dog meat had long been part of Toba-Batak religious doctrine. Somalaing applied this elite religious code to all his followers, and also prohibited them from eating the flesh of animals which died of illness because they were not malim. The determination of what was holy or pure was based on Toba-Batak values. While maintaining the essence of the indigenous religion and value system, Somalaing believed he had found a way to the source of power that was transforming Batak society. He received the revelation in 1890.

Guru Somalaing and Raja Rum

Somalaing's next task was to show followers the way to cope with the colonial power. His conviction of sharing the power of Jehova led him to expect European newcomers to assist him in the movement. His encounter with an Italian traveller, Elio Modigliani, just after the revelation increased Somalaing's expectation.

Modigliani stayed in the Toba area from October 1890 till February 1891. To the Toba-Batak, this Italian was a type of European different from the Dutch and German missionaries. The people who were at the same time oppressed by the colonial regime and impressed by the superiority of Dutch power, were hoping for the appearance of a different kind of European who would help them to share European power without having to accept it on Dutch or missionary terms.(37) The appearance of such a Westerner made it possible for the Batak people to question the legitimacy of Dutch rule and even hope to use his power to change the existing regime.

When Modigliani was travelling around the southern shore of Lake Toba, he had a chance to talk with the local people.(38) He was asked various questions, including who his raja was. He answered that it was "Raja Roma". Then there arose an unexpected stir among the people. One of them asked Modigliani, "Why did Raja Rom never accept any of the numerous gifts of horses and buffaloes which they regularly presented?" Modigliani was unable to understand who Raja Rom (correctly Rum) was. The name Raja Rum derived from the legend of Sultan Iskandar Dzulkarnain, Alexander the Great. According to the Toba-Batak, Alexander the Great had three sons. One was the king of Rum (also called Raja Stambul), the second was the king of China, and the third was the king of Minangkabau.(39) As Islam spread into the west coast of Sumatra, the name of Raja Rum came to be more well-known among the Toba-Batak through influence from Barus.

The rumour that a delegate of Raja Rum was staying in Balige spread around the lake-side and finally reached Somalaing. This datu visited Modigliani many times, showing much politeness and pressing friendship upon him. Modigliani accordingly asked Somalaing to guide him to the upper Asahan area (on the east coast of Sumatra) where he had not been allowed to travel by Dutch officials because it was outside Dutch authority. Modigliani vividly described the scene after he asked Somalaing for help:

My heart beat with a double blow, while I waited for Somalaing's answer. And he made me wait a very long time. His black eyebrows wrinkled, he remained silent while his face underwent queer distortions. "I will offer you my revolver as a present and one dollar per day for every man who goes with you. "I continued in order that I could overcome a dislike of him. Suddenly he roared out his agreement rather than answering. He took my hands in his, brought them to his heart, embraced me, kissed me on both cheeks, and even planted teeth in them. "Amatta ["my father", alluding to Raja Rom] has sent you in order to drive away the Dutch and Guru Samalaing will help you!"(40)

Somalaing had been seeking for a way to drive the Dutch away. Looking for a means to master the power of the foreign newcomers, he seized upon the Italian, a supposed son of Raja Rum, as a key to success in the fight against the Dutch.

Modigliani left the Batak area after travelling through the upper Asahan area, but the encounter convinced Somalaing that his claim was confirmed through the appearance of Modigliani. He adopted the belief in Raja Rum as part of his Parmalim doctrine. Raja Rum and Si Singa Mangaraja, he claimed, were sons of God.(41) Some day Raja Rum would come to the Batak area with his son, Modigliani, to expel the Dutch. Then a new Si Singa Mangaraja would arise, and the glorious Batak order, "harajaon Si Singa Mangaraja" (Kingdom of Si Singa Mangaraja), would be restored. After Modigliani's departure Somalaing and his followers prayed to Raja Rum in the same manner as had been done in traditional religious ceremonies when people had wanted to ask Si Singa Mangaraja or Batak deities for help.

The earlier stages of the Parmalim movement can be described as an endeavour to maintain the Batak traditional social order under the new source of power. The movement spread quickly into the northeastern part of Toba,(42) which was being radically influenced by the colonial government and economy from the Sumatran east coast, though its cultural system was still intact. Somalaing was not able to find many followers in the southern part of Toba where the Christian Church had already established a dominant position, or in the places where the population was not substantially under European influence. He found the greatest support in the places where people had just started to feel the Dutch and the missionary influence.

Somalaing's followers were mostly minor chieftains and their relatives. In order to retain their status and their social system, they also sought access to the source of European power in order to combat it. In their Parmalim ceremonies, they prayed to Jehova, the Virgin Mary, Jesus and Raja Rum, as well as Batak deities.(43)

Then, the Parmalims started to revere the German missionaries working in the northeastern part of Toba as Batak kings. Like Modigliani, the German missionaries had objectives different from the Dutch colonial officials. The Parmalims began to expect the missionaries to assist them.

The case of a German named Pohlig, who had been in Toba since 1890, provides an example of this process. He was an engineer and among missionaries was known as "the capable Brother Pohlig" (der tuchtige Br. Pohlig).(44) He occasionally repaired guns for the colonial goverment.(45) Such technical knowledge, which was a major aspect of the superiority of European power, was of great interest to the Parmalims. They were eager to be initiated into its mysteries. According to Pohlig, one Parmalim local leader wrote to him in 1891 saying he would bring presents to celebrate the birth of Pohlig's son. "We come to you tomorrow with our wives because a son is born to you. God has instructed me that we must salute this".(46) The following day thousands of Parmalims visited the embarrassed Pohlig, firing salutes and playing music, and presented him a mare and a foal.(47) Pohlig, however, returned these presents to them, because he thought that accepting them would indicate approval of their religion.

In spite of Pohlig's cold response, the Parmalims increased their reverence towards him. As the colonial goverment intensified its influence on the northeastern part of Toba, introducing corvee labour from the end of 1892,(48) the Parmalims began to believe that Pohlig was a person who could intervene with the Dutch on their behalf. According to Pohlig's report of 1893, he came to be regarded as an incarnation of Si Singa Mangaraja.

These men [Parmalims] reveal really crazy ideas. Just now I have become the Singamangaraja. "You are it", they say. "You have only changed your form!" A few days ago some were still here. I said to them. "Don't bother me with your absurd reasonings, I am not the Singamangaraja." "We know very accurately that you are it", they said. "Debata [God] has told us". Moreover, they said in order to convince me that I am he, "Your father, the former Singamangaraja, was shot by the Dutch in the arm, then went to heaven. He has sent you, but he has given you another form, so that the Dutch could not recognize you." They believe such nonsense, and that is their gospel.(49)

According to the belief of the Toba-Batak, the sahala of Si Singa Mangaraja could be shifted to another person who would then be the next Si Singa Mangaraja.(50) After Si Singa Mangaraja XII, Ompu Pulo Batu, was wounded in the battle of 1883, those who believed that Si Singa Mangaraja was invulnerable began to doubt whether he still possessed the sahala of Si Singa Mangaraja.(51) The Parmalims began to claim that Si Singa Mangaraja XII, having lost his sahala, had gone to heaven and that the sahala was now in Pohlig, who appeared in the form of a Westerner. Incidentally, Pohlig had a scar on his hand similar to Si Singa Mangaraja XII. This was a sign to the Parmalims reconfirming their belief that in Pohlig Si Singa Mangaraja was reincarnated. When the Parmalims visited Pohlig, they offered gifts, expecting him to support their protests against the colonial government, and anticipating that he would in due course declare himself to be Si Singa Mangaraja, and together with Raja Rum would drive the Dutch away.

As the colonial goverment intensified its authority in the Toba-Batak area, the Parmalims' expectations escalated. They claimed: before long the seven dark days and nights would come; then the Dutch would be driven away from the Batak country by the appearance of Raja Rum and Si Singa Mangaraja; non Parmalims would be destroyed by earthquakes, and the Parmalims would inherit all things.(52) Occasional collisions occurred between the Parmalims and the colonial government. The leader Somalaing was arrested by the colonial authorities in 1895 and was exiled to Java.(53) However, his removal did not end the movement. The basic problem of the Parmalims -- that the colonial goverment and German missionaries should share their assets with the Batak people -- was not resolved at all. Among the believers protest movements continued to arise.(54)

Conclusion

This article has argued the role of the Batak milienarian leader in the Parmalim movement against the European colonial order. Guru Somalaing successfully established the Parmalim movement because he was able to show his followers an apparent way to share the new power of the Europeans in indigenous Toba-Batak terms. His claim was confirmed through the appearance of Modigliani and Pohlig who would assist him in the movement. Although previous accounts have suggested that the Batak millenarian vision, the restoration of Si Singa Mangaraja and the expulsion of the Dutch by supernatural means, induced the Batak people to join the Parmalim movement and anti-Dutch protests,(55) such accounts have not given sufficient attention to the basic question of why a certain type of leader was successful.

The role of the prophet in the earlier stages of the Parmalim movement would suggest a tentative model to explain the role of prophets in other millenarian movements which arose in areas newly subjected under European power. Most of the Cargo Cults(56) in Melanesia, as well as the Taiping rebellion(57) in China and the Cao Dai movement(58) in Vietnam, show that the millenarian leader's main task, like that of Somalaing, was to suggest a way to share the new European power through their own indigenous means regarded as "traditional". This type of leader's other characteristics, such as the ability to contact supernatural forces, healing or divination were of only secondary importance.

Somalaing's claim began to appear questionable to followers when Modigliani and Pohlig proved to be unreliable allies. In spite of the Parmalims' ardent hopes, neither Modigliani nor Pohlig came to their aid, and the Parmalims began to doubt their doctrine. Re-clarifying to them what the real source of power was and how they could gain access to it was the task of future millenarian

leaders. The Parmalim movement was reorganized in the late 1890s by another millenarian leader, who revitalized the Batak traditional High God as their source of power through new terms. Thus when a prophet successfully suggested a new solution in familiar terms to people dissatisfied with the existing order, such a movement again arose. Batak millenarian responses continued. This article is a revised version of a paper originally presented at the 12th IAHA [International Association of Historians of Asia] Conference, University of Hong Kong, 24-28 June 1991. The issues discussed here are explored more fully in my Ph.D. diss., "Prophets and Followers in Batak Millenarian Responses to the Colonial Order: Parmalim, Na Siak Bagi and Parhudamdam, 1890-1930" (The Australian National University, 1988). I am very grateful to B. Dahm, G. Daws, J. Fox, R. de Iongh, Y. Ishii, M. van Langenberg, D. Marr, A. Reid, L. Schreiner, A.A. Sitompul and S. Situmorang for their comments and advice.

(1) I generally follow the definition of a "millenarian" movement as conceived by Y. Talmon and N. Cohn, who use the term not in a specific and limited historical sense, but in the wider sense of characterizing religious movements that expect imminent, total, ultimate, this-worldly, collective salvation [Y. Talmon, "Millenarism", in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. D.L. Sills, vol. 10 (New York: The Macmillan Company and The Free Press, 1968), p. 349, and N. Cohn, "Medieval Millenarism: Its Bearing on the Comparative Study of Millenarian Movements", in Millennial Dreams in Action Essays in Comparative Study, ed. S.L. Thrupp (The Hague: Mouton, 1962). Though "messianic" movements, which arose where history was seen as a series of recurrent cycles, have little of the linear quality of many European millenary movements, we can use the term "millenarism" to refer to them because their prophetic leaders endeavoured to initiate followers into the source of power appearing to cause such a total transformation.

(2) This does not mean that millenarian movements arose only in colonial situations or because of foreign impact. Such movements were also evident in the pre-colonial period without foreign influence, when established socio-cultural conditions were distorted by disasters such as plagues, devasting fires, recurrent long droughts or by the unjustified assumption of power [S. Kartodirdjo, "Agrarian Radicalism in Java: Its Setting and Development", in Culture and Politics in Indonesia, ed. C. Holt (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1972), and Talmon, "Millenarism" p.354. There are two main reasons why I have chosen to study millenarian movements under colonial regimes or foreign influence. The first reason is that by dealing with cross-cultural millenarian movements, I would like to consider through what millenarian vision prophets were able to draw people into movements in order to explain the role of prophets better. The other is because there are abundant source materials about millenarian movements during the colonial era.

(3) J. C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976).

(4) M. Adas, Prophets of Rebellion Millenarian Protest Movements against the European Colonial Order (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1979).

(5) Ibid., pp. 92-121, and J.M. van der Kroef, "Messianic Movements in the Celebes, Sumatra, and Borneo", in Millennial Dreams, ed. Thrupp, pp. 117-20.

(6) This does not mean that millenarian movements were mere retreats into the traditional world. Even when millenarian visions put great stress on nativistic elements, these movements endeavoured to keep some aspects of their indigenous culture alive in new situations or revitalize these traditions by giving them new meanings. In this sense, millenarian movements were new attempts to establish new world views by taking both the indigenous and the externals into consideration. See for instance, Adas, Prophets, pp. xxvi-xxvii, and Talmon, "Millenarism" p. 353.

(7) S. Kartodirdjo, "Agrarian Radicalism", pp. 78-82 and Protest Movements in Rural Java A Study of Agrarian Unrest in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 7-8.

(8) Adas, Prophets, p. xx and 112.

(9) J. Warneck, Die Religion der Batak: Ein Paradigma fur die animistischen Religionen des Indischen Archipels (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1909), pp. 109-113.

(10) Related works include Adas, Prophets, and S.L. Popkin, The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 252-66. The former still needs to explain why prophets were important in these movements, and the latter uses very general terms that are applicable not only to millenarian movements hut also to other socio-political movements. In this paper, I will not refer to unorganized protest movements in which no prophetic leader appeared; however, so long as existing co-ordination systems continue to function, leaderless opposition is possible [see Popkin, The Rational Peasant,p. 266, and J.C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985)].

(11) I exclude from millenarian leaders those who endeavoured to share the indigenous source of power through traditional ways or who endeavoured to gain access to the external source of power through external ways. When the traditional approach [to share the indigenous source of power through indigenous ways] collapsed in new situations, millenarian movements generally started. The latter pattern is a pure assimilation into a new power. Such adherence to traditional ways or to a new power, that caused no competitive situation between an indigenous power and an external power, inhibited people from engaging in millenarian activities. See K.O.L. Burridge, New Heaven New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969), pp. 33-35.

(12) Process-Verbaal of Guru Somalaing (Tarutung, 31 Jan. 1896), Indischen brief, 22 May 1896, no. 910/2, Verbaal 25/6/1896/96.

(13) For instance, Waldemar, Testimony of Gayus Hutahaean (Pangururan, 2 Feb. 1922), V.E. Korn Collection, no. 454.

(14) Since the main leaders of the earlier stages of the Parmalim movement were sentenced to exile by decision of the Governor-General of Netherlands India, their testimonies, which had first been sent to the Council of Netherlands India [in Batavia] from Tapanuli, were later sent to Netherlands Ministry of Colonies along with the Governor-General's decisions. These testimonies can be found in the Archives of the Ministry of Colonies in Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague.

(15) E. Modigliani, Fra i Batacchi indipendenti (Rome: Societa Geografica Italiana, 1892).

(16) Most of them are stored in V.E. Korn Collection (no. 441 and 454) in Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Leiden.

(17) "Bataks", in Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indie, vol. 1 (The Hague and Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff and E.J. Brill, 1917).

(18) F.M. Lebar, Ethnic Groups of Insular Southeast Asia, vol. 1 (New Haven: Human Relations Area Files Press, 1972), p. 20.

(19) L. Castles, "Statelessness and Stateforming Tendencies among the Batak before Colonial Rule" in Pre-colonial State Systems in Southeast Asia, ed. A. Reid and L. Castles (Kuala Lumpur: The Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1979), p. 75, and R. Heine-Geldern, "Le pays de P'i-K'ien, le Roi au Grand Cou et le Singa Mangaradja", Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient 49 (1959): 363.

(20) Warneck, Die Religion, p. 25-26; E.M. Loeb, Sumatra: Its History and People (Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta: Oxford University Press, 1972); and H. Parkin, Batak Fruit of Hindu Thought (Madras: The Christian Literature Society, 1978), pp. 145-49.

(21) J. Winkler, Die Toba=Batak auf Sumatra in gesunden und kranken Tagen: Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis des animistischen Heidentums (Stuttgart: Chr. Belser A. G., 1925), pp. 72-78; and Warneck, Die Religion, pp. 109-113.

(22) Heine-Geldern, "Le pays", pp. 374-78; and C.M. Pleyte, "Singe Mangaradja: De heilige koning der Bataks", Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie 55 (1903): 1-17.

(23) For example, J.H. Meerwaldt, "De laatste Singamangaradja", De Rijnsche Zending (1908): 2-7.

(24) Van Lith and E. Gobee, "Rapport omtrent Si Singamangaradja en zijn naaste familieleden", Mail-rapport 2674/1929, Verbaal 14/10/1930/20; Resident van Oostkust van Sumatra aan Gouverneur Generaal van Nederlandsch-Indie (Bengkalis, 28 Aug. 1885), Malirapport 648/1885; and J. Drakard, A Malay Frontier: Unity and Duality in a Sumatran Kingdom (Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1990), pp. 81-82.

(25) M. Joustra, Batakspiegel (Leiden: Bataksch Instituut, 1910), and O. von Kessel, "Reis in de nog onafhankelijke Batak-landen van Klein-Toba, op Sumatra, in 1844", Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie 4 (1856): 73-76.

(26) S. Coolsma, De zendingseeuw voor Nederlandsch Oost-Indie (Utrecht: C. H. E. Breijer, 1901), pp. 309-385; and J.R. Hutauruk, "Die Batakkirche vor ihrer Unabhangigkeit (1899-1942): Probleme der kirchlichen Unabhangigkeit angesichts der Problematik von Mission, Kolonialismus und Nationalismus" (Ph.D. diss. Hamburg University, 1980), p. 101.

(27) Meerwaldt, "De laatste Singamangaradja", pp. 87-88; Resident van Tapanuli, "Extract uit het verslag betrekkelijk de verwikkelingen in de Battaklanden en de daarop gevolgde militaire expeditie naar Toba", Mailrapport 801/1878; W.B. Sidjabat, Ahu Si Singamangaraja: Arti Historis, Politis, Ekonomis dan Religius Si Singamangaraja XII (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1982), pp. 165-70.

(28) Proces-Verbaal of Guru Somalaing.

(29) "De zendingsposten der Rijnsche zending in Silindoeng en Toba", De Rijnsche Zending (1887), pp. 63-68; and Joustra, Batakspiegel, p. 258.

(30) G. Pilgram, Laban: Ein Lebensbild aus der Batak=Mission auf Sumatra (Barmen: Rheinischen Missions-Gesellschaft, 1921), pp. 12-28; and "Eenige schetsen uit de Batta-zending", De Rijnsche Zending 1883), p. 99.

(31) Proces-Verbaal of Guru Somalaing.

(32) Ibid.

(33) Ibid., and D.W.N. de Boer, "De Permalimsekten van Oeloean, Toba en Habinsaran", Tijdschrift voor het Binnenlandsch Bestuur 47 (1914): 382-83.

(34) Winkler, Die Toba=Batak, p. 75.

(35) Sidjabat, Ahu Si Singamangaraja, p. 442; and A.L. Tobing, Si Singamangaradja I-XII (Medan: W. Marpaung, 1967).

(36) J. Keuning, "Einige beschouwingen betreffende de staatkundige organisatie onder de Toba-Bataks", Koloniaal Tijdschrift 28 (1939): 497; and Sidjabat, Ahu Si Singamangaraja, pp. 373-77.

(37) For example, see Burridge, New Heaven, pp. 67-68; and A.F.C. Wallace, "Handsome Lake and the Great Revival in the West", American Quarterly (Summer 1952): 149-65.

(38) Modigliani, Fra i Batacchi, pp. 71-77; and J.C. Vergouwen, "Een Italiaan onder de Bataks", Koloniaal Tijdschrift 21 (1932): 553-55.

(39) "Verslag van eene reis in het land der Bataks, in het binnenland van Sumatra, ondernomen in het jaar 1824, door de heeren Burton en Ward, zendelingen der Baptisten. Medegedeeld door wijlen sir Stamford Raffles", Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie 5 (1856): 283.

(40) Modigliani, Fra i Batacchi, p. 85

(41) Proces-Verbaal of Guru Somalaing.

(42) Boer, "De Permalimsekten", pp. 391-92.

(43) Ibid., pp. 382-84.

(44) M. Joustra, "Een bezoek aan de Rijnsche Zendelingen in Silindoeng en Toba", Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap 43 (1899): 260.

(45) Controleur van Toba aan Assistent Resident van Toba en Silindung, (Balige, 21 Mar. 1904), agenda no. 2294/1904 [in Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia].

(46) P. Pohlig to the Inspector of the Rheinischen Missions-Gesellschaft (Siantar, 28 Dec. 1891), B/f 34 (in Archiv der Vereinigte Evangelische Mission, Wuppertal).

(47) "De Batta-zending", De Rijnsche Zending (1892), p. 195.

(48) The Governor-General's Decision of 29 December 1892, no. 3.

(49) "Aus der Battamission", Berichte der Rheinischen Missions-Gesellschaft (1893), pp. 325-26.

(50) M. Joustra, "De Singa Mangaradja-figuur", in Gedenkschrift voor het Koninklijk Instituut voor de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1926), p. 211.

(51) J. Warneck, Sechzig Jahre Batakmission in Sumatra (Berlin: Martin Warneck, 1925), p. 118; and Sidjabat, Ahu Si Singamangaraja, p. 119.

(52) O. Marcks to the Inspector of the Rheinischen Missions-Gesellschaft (Sitorang, 13 Mar. 1902), F/a 50.

(53) Extract uit het Register der Besluiten van den Gouverneur-Generaal van Nederlandsch-Indie" (Cipanas, 22 May 1896), Indischen brief, 22 May 1896, no. 910/2.

(54) For further details, see Hirosue, "Prophets and Followers", pp. 160-212. (55) For example, van der Kroef, "Messianic Movements", pp. 92-106; Mohammad Said, Tokoh Singa Mangaradja XII (Medan: Waspada, 1961), pp. 54-73; and L. Castles, "The Political Life of a Sumatran Residency: Tapanuli 1915-1940" (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1972), pp. 74-76.

(56) P. Lawrence, Road Belong Cargo: A Study of the Cargo Movement in the Southern Madang District New Guinea (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1964); and Burridge, New Heaven, pp. 47-74.

(57) F. Michael, The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents, vol. 1 (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1966), pp. 21-50.

(58) Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 84-86; and J.S. Werner, Peasant Politics and Religious Sectarianism: Peasant and Priest in the Cao Dai in Viet Nam (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981).

Beru Dayang:

the concept of female spirits and the movement of fertility in Karo Batak culture. (Sumatra)

Source: Asian Folklore Studies
Publication Date: 10/01/1997
Author: Goes, Beatriz van der
COPYRIGHT 1997 Asian Folklore Studies


This paper describes and analyzes the concept of a female spirit, called Beru Dayang, among the Karo, one of the six Batak peoples of North Sumatra, Indonesia. The term beru dayang(1) appears in ritual chants, in the process and rituals of growing dry rice, in the composition of equipment, and in elements that contribute to the constitution of human life.

In Karo ritual chants the beru dayang are addressed as grandparents (nini).(2) They inhabit various parts of specific domains that belong to deities called beraspati.(3) In this paper I will present appearances of the beru dayang in the domains belonging to the deity of the land(scape), Beraspati Taneh, and the deity of the house, Beraspati Rumah.

The concept of beru dayang or si dayang becomes eminently clear in the process and rituals of dry rice cultivation. A variety of plants are planted at the rice field's center, its "navel": these are thought to shelter and protect the rice spirit, Beru Dayang (or Si Dayang), during the time the rice is growing. In this context the Karo Batak conceive of Si Dayang as female and as the spiritual element of the rice (tendi page).(4) Her character changes in accordance with the different stages of the growing of rice, which are reflected in the names given to her between sowing and the harvest.

Beru Dayang, as rice, is part of the rainy and dry seasons and has a mythical affinity with the arenga palm (pola) and the rainbow. The spirit of the arenga palm, Beru Sibo, and the spirit of the rainbow, Beru Tole, accompany Beru Dayang into the field as elder (kaka) and younger (agi) cousins. A similar affinity is conceived to exist in the female body in the form of a specific interaction between the breasts (pola), the uterus (mbuyak), and the vagina (tele memek). At birth si dayang reappears in the constitution of the relationship between the child and his/her spiritual siblings: the elder (kaka) amniotic fluid (gala-gala) and the younger (agi) placenta.

Beru Dayang, or Si Dayang, appears as the essence of the existence of many things. In Karo Batak creation myths she lives in the moon (Beru Dayang sinu bulan) and produces sunshine (Beru Dayang sindar mata ni ari). She appears by various names in the tools of the forge, in the components of the gun, and in the equipment for chewing betel (NEUMANN 1922, 2-3).

This paper will trace appearances of Beru Dayang in a Karo Batak ritual chant, in dry rice cultivation, in the order of seasons, in mythical affinities with the spirits of the arenga palm and the rainbow, in the female body, and in the birth elements of amniotic fluid and placenta. This leads to the question of how Beru Dayang is related to the fertility of both rice and people. The Karo Batak perception that birth and the rice harvest are both processes of delivery means that use of the term fertility is not overly abstract. In this sense fertility is connected to processes of embodiment and the correct order of relations that stimulate growth and the development of a particular body, processes in which female persons and spirits take a specific position.

BERU DAYANG IN A RITUAL CHANT

In Karo Batak society certain people, called guru, are said to possess two layers of eyes (dua lapis pernin matana), meaning that they can see two worlds, the human one and that of the spirits. The skills of these guru are quite diverse, and include the art of fortune-telling, performing rituals, contacting the supernatural world, and treating diseases (GINTING 1991, 85). A guru permangmang is a person, either male or female, who understands the messages of the spirits and represents their voices in the mangmang, a kind of dialogue expressed in the form of a ritual chant.(5) Guru compare these chants to an offering. For, as they say, in a mangmang words are offered and spirits are invited to the ritual. The special activity of guru permangmang is the recitation of personal histories, including the origin of clan membership and of the village, "kingdom," or house, and the connection of these to a mythical past, the knowledge of which has been handed down by spirit guides.(6) A mangmang persentabin is a ritual chant in which spirits are addressed in a singsong manner to ask for protection and success in the ritual. The text of a chant is in general composed of several other mangmang, like a mangmang jabu (addressing the living place), a mangmang rumah (addressing the structure of the house), or a mangmang kuta (addressing the village), in which each chant addresses a different level of space and of ritual organization. As each ritual has its own context and specific offering, a guru through a mangmang persentabin reorganizes various rituals into a total context.

The Part as a Whole

Below I present some fragments of a mangmang persentabin that used to be sung at the inauguration of a house.(7) Like all mangmang persentabin, it consists of two main parts. The first part addresses the deity, of the earth, Beraspati Taneh, and the beings called beru dayang. The second part is devoted to Beraspati Rumah (the deity of the house) and the entities called either beru dayang or sibayak (rich person) that together constitute a house. As such the relationship between the beraspati and the beru dayang is conceptualized as one between a whole and its parts. The beraspati embody whole spaces, like landscapes, villages, or houses, while the beru dayang occupy a place, like a significant feature in the landscape(8) or an important element of the house. However, sometimes the part a beru dayang occupies stands for the whole, in which case there is no clear distinction between the beraspati and beru dayang. The following fragment is a case in point.

30 I maka kam dage nini beraspati taneh enda arih i japa nari nge ndia ku mulai adi das nari ngenda ndi dalen ku teruh entah teruh nari kari erdalen ku datas arih entah si lebe gia karl ku tengah ku pudi nini

35 ula karo sangkut-sangkut ukurndu entah si pudi gia kari ku lebe ku tengah ky pudi ula kari sangkut-sangkut ukurndu aku nini kuturiken nge gia kari kerina kugelari me kari gelarndu

40 si arab lebe ngenda man ikutenku nini ula kari tama ngindet-ngindet

I maka karn nge lebe ku gelari gelarndu nini kam si ngian-ngian datas deleng si meganjang ena nini gelarndu kepe nini beru tiayang si menatap-natap arih

30 So you, the grandparent beraspati of this land(scape) from where shall I start if I start from the top I must continue to the bottom if I start from the bottom I must continue to the top maybe I shall place the first one at the center, or at the back

35 please do not feel offended maybe I shall place the last one at the front, at the center, or at the back please, do not feel offended I shall uncover everything, grandparent I shall mention your name

40 I just follow what has been done before, grandparent please, let no one fall ill

I shall mention your name first, grandparent you who lives on that high forested mountain, grandparent your name is lady [beru dayang] with a panoramic view, isn't it?

In this text the deity of the earth, grandparent Beraspati Taneh, may be addressed from different perspectives: from top to bottom, from bottom to top, from the front to the center on to the back, from the back to the center on to the front. When the guru decides to follow what has been done by others before, he first addresses the one who lives on the high forested mountain, whose name is beru dayang si manatap-natap, "the lady with a panoramic view." In this way he follows the line from top to bottom, by which the top, the first to be mentioned, represents the whole body. In this case beru dayang si manatap-natap is the part that represents the beraspati.

The total body of Beraspati Taneh is further made visible by addressing significant parts of the land(scape), moving from the top part, the high forested mountain, to the lower lying parts:

You, who lives on these high hills, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang penungkir-nungkir; you, who lives in the extended savannah flatlands, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang tikar markimbang kahe-kahe kolu-kolu; you, who lives in the basin land, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang si manjilam dang-dang so bias; you, who lives in the ravines (and) the long, deep and narrow river banks, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang si mangaloken; you, who lives in the middle of the wide ocean, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang saniang naga bagas sampuren; you, who lives in the fast current river, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang si bagas sampuren.(9)

In the second part of the chant, the invocation addresses the deity of the house, Beraspati Rumah, and mentions significant parts of this total body. Moving again from high to low it starts with:

You, who lives at the ridge of the house, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang si manatap-natap; you, who lives in the center of this living place, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang pepulungken; you, who lives in this central hearthstone, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang perunggu-rungguken; you, who lives at the navel of the hearth, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang si manjilam dangdang so bias; you, who lives in the ashes of the fireplace, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang penggeser-geser; you, who lives at the gully/walkway, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang pagodang-godangken; you, who lives at the doors, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang penunggu-nunggu; you, who lives in the surroundings of this house, your name is grandparent Beru Dayang perjaga-jaga perbelat perbalengen.(10)

Each part addressed reveals its function to the total body; the specific name of the beru dayang is generally connected to the protective role as ascribed to them, and reflects the specific character of the place they occupy. An example is the following fragment of the navel of the hearth, which is used for burning ensorceled objects.

I maka kam pe nini

220 singian-ngian ibas pusung dapur ena arih kam pe kugelari ka nge gelarndu nini gelarndu kepe beru dayang simanjilam dangdang so bias aku ngelaga aku nina buluh laga silarnndu labo erbias-bias nini

225 enda pe bage me nini adi lit kin gia nipi jahat nipi gulut entem-entemen nu begu adi la kin gna ulah-ulah kalak si la mehuli rukur adi lit kin gia singabat ngali aku nina

230 silamndu nini maka sikap kari runggunta enda nini

Also you, grandparent

220 who lives at the navel of this hearth I shall also address your name, grandparent your name is lady whose flames lick everything I wish to excel myself, said the bamboo your fire tongues are sufficient, grandparent

225 to threat with, grandparent whether someone has a bad dream (or) a nightmare is menaced by a ghost or whether there is sorcery from persons with bad thoughts whether something is obstructed or thwarted, I said

230 please let your fire lick it, grandparent so that this meeting can be arranged, grandparent

The beru dayang of the hearth is thought to be like fire - her flames protect the "owners" of the hearth from sorcery and nightmares. Nevertheless, the whole body of a mangmang persentabin text disentangles a beraspati into several beru dayang by which a place is conceived to be the location of a specific beru dayang.

Parallel Movements

Although the land(scape) and the house are conceived of as distinct bodies, they are addressed in parallel order by the beru dayang in mangmang persentabin chants. Starting at the highest part of both domains, like the high forested mountain and the ridge of the house, it continues downward to the lower-lying parts, like the wide ocean and the foundation of the house. At the end all the disengaged parts of the land(scape) and the house are reconnected by one of its parts, such as the river or the surroundings.

In a sense some beru dayang are also seen as coordinate, as can be noted in the identity of the names given to some of them. Thus, in the above chant the spirits of the high forested mountain and the roof-ridge are both beru dayang si menatap-natap, "the lady with a panoramic view," revealing a parallelism between the domains of forested mountain land and the house's roof. Another point of coordination is Beru Dayang si manjimlam dangdang so bias, who is part both of the land(scape) and of the house.

Such a parallelism becomes significant for locations related to ritual. In the ritual that destroys sorcery, for instance, the sorcery is thrown away into a basin area (taneh mate) or burnt at the navel of the hearth (pusung dapur). Many chants conceive of both these places as the location of the same Beru Dayang manjilam dangdang so bias, whose character is like a flame that licks everything.(11) In the practice of dry rice agriculture this basin land becomes the field's navel, and forms the ritual center of Si Dayang.

BERU DAYANG AND DRY RICE CULTIVATION

The Body of the Rice Field

A Karo Batak dry rice field is usually a square bordered by a fence or various types of shrubs. The fields should be placed at right angles to any nearby river, which is said to prevent the river from washing away the rice. In the center of the field a small garden of about a depa (fathom; six feet)(12) square may be found. The plants that grow here are, generally, besi-besi (turmeric; Curcuma longa), sangke sempilet (Justica gendarusa), kalinjuhang (Cordyline fructicosa), nderasi (Villebrunea rubesceus, a native forest tree), sere-sere (lemon grass; Andropogon nardus), kapal-kapal (Kalanchoe pinnata), and galuh si tabar (banana; Musa brachycarpa Backer) (GINTING 1994, 26; HEYNE 1927). The small garden is called pemenan (starting point), perbenihen (seedling place), pusung juma (field's navel), piseren (crown), and also ingan tendi page (the place of the rice-spirit). As a group all of the plants grown are called bulung si malem-malem (leaves that bring coolness).

The garden comprises the above-mentioned "navel," which, ideally, is made in a small basin area (taneh mate; lit., "dead land"), that is, a poorly drained lowdying area. Crops planted in this place would be parched. If the field lacks such a location, the center of the field will serve. According to informants, the garden offers Beru Dayang shelter in the field, making the field a location of Beru Dayang. The time that Beru Dayang is expected to enter a rice field and the manner in which she grows into a particular body are evident in the cycle of Karo Batak dry rice cultivation.

Creating a Dry Rice Field

Prospective locations for dry rice fields are usually discovered in the forest by men while hunting or collecting forest products (GINTING 1994, 26). When a good site is found an area of about a depa square is cleared in its center, into which a betel leaf jammed in a stick is placed.(13) A handful of fragrant soil is then taken home and put beneath the pillow.(14) A good dream that night is taken as an omen that the field is ready to be cultivated (TAMPENAWAS 1894, 240; NEUMANN 1902b, 374-75; JOUSTRA 1902c, 424; SLAATS AND PORTIER 1994, 188-89). The borders of the field are indicated by planting shrubs at regular intervals; in eastern Karoland one often sees borders of kalinjuhang (Cordyline fructicosa). In the past one saw borders, not only of kalinjuhang and arimas (crotons; Codiaeum variegatum), but also of jaba (Eleusina coracana), a kind of millet (JOUSTRA 1899, 128; 1907, 45; 1910, 287; INLICHTINGEN 1912, 176). After a field has been marked off a working group (aron) prepares it for sowing. In the past working groups that cleared the land and harvested the crop were made up of young, unmarried people. Nowadays this is done by married couples, as young people are absent, continuing their education in the city.

After the fields had been cleared the young men and girls of the working groups celebrated the end of their work with a feast that lasted for two days (JOUSTVA 1898, 298). DE HAAN mentions that during these days the young people bathed together,(15) and at night danced in the village square and flirted, while married couples remained awake to tend the fires in the hearths, which were not allowed to go out (1875, 40-41). This feast, called guro guro aron, is still celebrated, although in different areas it is held at different stages of the growth of the rice. In Liang Melas, in the northwestern part of Karoland, it is connected with sowing (merdang-merdem), while in the Gunung-gunung area near Mt Sinabung it is held when the fruit sets in the panicles (mbeltek page, erbunga benih), when the rice is about three months old (GINTING 1986, 80). Other areas hold it at harvest time (rani).

Sowing

When the time for sowing approaches, the owners of the field first create the field's navel in, as mentioned earlier, a basin or the center of the field. Some of the plants planted in the garden there, bulung si malem-malem ("leaves that bring coolness"), serve mainly ritual purposes.(16) Others are used as cooking spices or as medicines (GINTING 1994, 45-47). When a field has never been cultivated before, food and a live white rooster are offered on an altar at the navel. The rooster is then released as a gift to the spirit of the forest (GINTING 1994, 27).(17)

After the field's navel has been made, the name of the original basin area changes from taneh mate topemenan (starting point) or perbenihen (from benih, "seed"), and becomes the locus of Si Dayang, the rice spirit (NEUMANN 1904a, 130) [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1A OMITTED]). The field's navel is thus the location where death and life connect or where death reproduces life. This life - the rice seeds to be sown at the navel - is thought to be protected by the navel's plants. As at the first claiming of the field, a betel leaf, the stalk of which is oriented towards Mt Sibuaten, is jammed in a stick and placed in the center;(18) this ritual act is thought to invite Si Dayang to come to the navel, the center of the field.

Eleven holes are then dibbled in the garden, into each of which rice seeds are placed. These rice seeds are "descended" from the previous harvest, and are thought to be direct descendants of the first rice. Ideally, the grains of these rice plants are never eaten, but are planted, time and again, at the field's navel. A newlywed couple is given its starting seeds by the bride's mother, a few weeks after the wedding (GINTING 1994, 31). This rice will ripen earlier than the other rice in the field. A few days before the harvest the villagers choose eleven of the best stalks, bind them together, and place them within the roof-covering of the field hut (JOUSTRA 1897, 155; 1902c, 425). They may also bring them home (NEUMANN 1902b, 379; GINTING 1994, 31). When sowing the rest of the field, the navel is the point from which the workers must always start (NEUMANN 1902b, 376; KIPP 1987, 261). A few days later the entire field is sown to rice, which at this stage is called beru dayang manercer, "the scattered lady."

In former times, the time for sowing (merdang) was indicated by the appearance of the bintang periama (Pleiades) early in the morning in the eastern part of the sky (NEUMANN 1902b, 377; 1905, 54). Planting was supposed to start at the field belonging to the village's founder. This was an important ritual event in which dreams and the sounds of birds were heeded as omens indicative of the abundance of the coming harvest. For four days the village was closed off from the outside world, as all had to remain silent and undisturbed. Sowing one's field is today still a ritual occasion to which relatives are invited to participate (serayan). Men rake the rows and dibble the holes, while women follow behind sowing the seeds. These activities are seen as analogous to sexual intercourse, and the dibble stick is usually carved to resemble a penis. The family that owns the field provides a lunch of rice, vegetables, and the meat of a speckled rooster (manuk cabur bintang, sprinkled with stars).

The rooster's head, feathers, tail, stomach, and nails are buried at the field's navel (GINTING 1994, 45), following a myth about the origin of the plants there. These plants are said to have come from the body parts of a male mythical bird (manuk danggur dawa-dawa daluna) that had been violently struck down by a god (DE HAAN 1875, 15-16; WESTENBERG 1892, 218; NEUMANN 1902b, 376; JOUSTRA 1907, 121).(19) According to this myth, rice originated from one of the mythical bird's eggs (manuk danggur dawa-dawa beruna) (JOUSTRA 1907, 122). The myth further relates that the male mythical bird is a transformation of a manuk cabur bintang, a speckled rooster that had been created by the god of the middle world from four different kinds of rice (JOUSTRA 1907, 109-11).(20)

According to the Karo Batak, the transformation of a bird into the plants at the field's navel should be seen in the context of the exchange of gifts at marriage, of which the presentation and consumption of a manuk cabur bintang is an important part. Early in the morning the boiled rooster, an egg, and some cooked rice are brought to the bride's house. This food is a gift from a group of women from the groom's side headed by his father's sister and also including his mother, mother's sister, mother's mother, and mother's brother's wife. These five women represent the body of the groom and the hearth of his house [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1B OMITTED].

To understand this, we must keep in mind that marriage among the Karo Batak comprises several phases in which various forms of exchange take place between the groom's side (si empo, the wife taker) and the bride's side (si nereh, the wife giver). These exchanges always occur at the bride's place, and are between the various categories of persons constituting the male and female relatives of both sides. The gift of the speckled rooster represents the complementary exchange between the bodies of groom and bride, by which they become united into a complete body with the numerical value of eleven, which stands for the male and female elements plus one, totality itself. The Karo express this as ersada tendi ke rumah: "the spirit is one with the house." Marriage and the complementarity of male and female are connected to the mother's brother's house. The mother's brother is the visible god, dibata ni idah. The food is in turn received by five women, headed by the bride's mother's brother's wife, who is accompanied by the bride's mother, her father's sister, her mother's sister, and her mother's mother. These recipients, who are "the trunk of the bride's body," eat the proffered food. The five women represent the bride's reproductive life force: the ingan mola jadi, the five places in the human body from where life emerges [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1C OMITTED], the re-creation of which belongs to the responsibilities of the mother's brother's house. The rooster represents the male element, the egg the female element, and the rice the children (GINTING 1994, 56-58; GINTING and VAN DER GOES 1994, 57).

The bird, transformed into plants, is also thought to create a cool place where the rice spirit, Si Dayang, can prosper (GINTING 1994, 30). Ritual specialists often advise prospective marriage partners to lay out such a place on their field, as it is said that their tendi (spiritual element) secretly desires it (WESTENBERG 1892, 230). Such a place is called an upah tendi, "a gift to one's spirit" that gives it satisfaction and makes it unlikely to leave.(21)

The rice is thought to take root directly after the seeds have been sown into the earth. This stage is known as beru dayang marsuli, "the lady that takes root."

Growth

Two rituals are performed in the field while the rice is growing (GINTING 1994, 47-49). The first, called ngambur-ngamburi (to pour upon), takes place a month after planting. Here rice plants are sprinkled with a medicine made from a mixture of water, river sand, and the leaves of the plants growing at the field's center. A yellow rooster is killed and its outer body parts are, once again, planted at the navel. At this stage the rice is known as beru dayang maranak, "the lady multiplies," referring to the "pregnancy" of the rice plants and the multiplication of the number of sown seeds.

The second ritual, mere page, is to feed the rice offerings. It comes three months after sowing when the rice has reached the stage where the fruit sets in the panicles and is called beltek laki page (JOUSTRA 1910, 175; GINTING 1994, 48) or si dayang tertuwang (GUILLAUME 1903, 9).(22) In this ritual, eleven small cooked river fish wrapped in a palm leaf are offered at the field's navel, together with glutinous rice cooked in bamboo. The food is placed at the perbenihen, where the rice is courteously addressed: "May all be well with you, si naik (the growing one), si buah (the fruit-bearing one), si nangkih (the rising one) (NEUMANN 1902b, 379-380; JOUSTRA 1910, 175; KIPP 1987, 263).

Harvest

The ritual picking of the rice stalks at the field's navel, called mutik beru dayang, announces the coming of the harvest (JOUSTRA 1902c, 425; NEUMANN 1902b, 378-379; GINTING 1994, 49-50). This ritual portrays the birth of the not yet fully ripened rice, which at this stage is called si dayang marayo, "the lady with a face" (GUILLAUME 1903, 9). The woman who owns the field first removes five fistfuls of the rice planted at the center, cutting it with a knife called a pengetam rather than a sickle. She next embraces their stalks as if they were a newborn baby, then ties them with grass and cuts them with the pengetam. The stalks are bound together with some of the "cooling leaves" from the field's navel and with several other plants bearing auspicious names (GINTING 1994, 49-50). This bunch is then tied to the roof beam of the field hut or brought home and placed on the rack (para-para) above the hearth (JOUSTRA 1902c, 425; NEUMANN 1902b, 378; GINTING 1994, 50). Next, eleven sheaves of rice are harvested from the field's edges and offered at the village's most important sacred place, the sembahen kuta at the women's bathing place.(23) They are then taken home, pounded, roasted, and made into pahpah (a kind of cracker) and served with palm sugar and scraped coconut (GINTING 1994, 50).

After the rice has matured, the actual harvest (rani) takes place. At this stage the rice is addressed as si dayang perpulungen, "the lady that brings us together" (GUILLAUME 1903, 9). The ears are cut one by one, bunched, and placed on the ground to dry.(24) When the rice is dry, the bunches are stacked into several different kinds of piles, each with its own name [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED]. The rice is now called beru dayang margungun, "the lady that is piled up."

In the past, the largest of these piles was called the pinuh (JOUSTRA 1902c, 425; NEUMANN 1902b, 380; KIPP 1987, 266), which is the word for the first fistfuls of rice cut without stalks using the pengetam knife. This pile was decorated, the most elaborate form of decoration being a bamboo called anggir-anggir (swing). This bamboo, which was adorned with wooden birds, white chicken feathers, and a diamond twined from black, white, and red thread, was placed on top of a miniature house roof and shaded by square awnings [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED].(25) The decorations were intended specifically for the topmost bundle of rice, the takal pinuh (head of the pinuh); this is the seat of the rice spirit, which is now thought of as a full person.

Where the preharvest activities are seen as the birth of the rice, the later treatment of it is thought of as analogous to the growth of a female child into a young woman. The decorated and shade-giving miniature house roof is made in order to invite the rice spirit, Beru Dayang, to move away from the field's navel into this new house, that is, to accompany the harvested rice.

Some days later the rice grains are threshed, which was formerly the work of adolescent boys and girls and for which clear moonlit nights were preferred (JOUSTRA 1902c, 425). At this time the takal pinuh is treated with special care. According to NEUMANN (1902b, 381), a girl with an auspicious name, such as Si Ngikut (the obedient one) or Si Ras (the one who accompanies), and both of whose parents were still alive, was chosen to handle this bunch of rice. The takal pinuh is not threshed, but spewed with betel juice and placed in a winnowing tray (ndiru), where it was used for prognostic purposes (NEUMANN 1906, 510). After threshing it was placed in the middle of the threshed rice, which is now called anak beru (literally "female child," a term used for daughters, their husbands, and children) (NEUMANN 1902b, 380-381; KIPP 1987, 267).

The next morning the threshed rice, now called beru dayang mardolan, "the ladies that are walking home in turns," was brought to the village by adolescent boys and girls in large plaited storage bags and stored in the rice barn.(26) At this moment its name changed into beru dayang marpulung, "the gathered ladies" (GUILLAUME 1903, 10). When all the grain had been stored, an egg or stone was placed on top to guard it.(27) The takal pinuh was then placed on top of the egg or stone and offered betel and food. It was left there for as long as there was rice in the bin (NEUMANN 1902b, 381-382; JOUSTRA 1902c, 425-426; KIPP 1987, 267-268).

THE AFFINITY OF BERU DAYANG WITH THE SEASONS

The cycle of sowing and harvesting of dry rice is connected to the arenga palm and the rainbow and linked with the alternating periods of the wet and dry monsoons, which are determined by Sumatra's equatorial climate. The best time to sow is at the start of the heavy rains, between September and the end of December, or at the start of the lighter wet season, between January and June. Just as rain is needed for growth, so wind is necessary for drying the harvest and, especially, winnowing the grain.(28) The dry season is dominated by a dry western wind that generally blows between June and July. Both the wet and dry monsoon, then, contribute to the rice-growing process.

In discussing the seasons, the Karo Batak mention that Beru Dayang does not enter the field alone, but is accompanied by Beru Sibo and Beru Tole, who are respectively Beru Dayang's elder (kaka) and younger (ag) cousins. There is no special tradition or myth explaining why they are her elder and younger cousins. In fact both have their own myths of origin, which do not refer to the other.

Beru Sibo, the Elder

The arenga palm (pola) is one indicator of seasonal change among the Karo. The arenga, which is grown in a small grove near the village, produces a juice (also called pola) that is tapped early in the morning and in the afternoon to be used as a drink or cooked into sugar. In former times, if the rice harvest had been inadequate the sago from this palm was used as a substitute food (DE HAAN 1875, 36; JOUSTRA 1903, 229). A decline in sap production indicates the approach of the rainy season, while an increase signals the start of the dry season.

This sap, which Karo Batak associate with water, is the spiritual element of the arenga palm; dreams about quagmires or an abundance of water were interpreted to mean the collection of much sap (NEUMANN 1904b, 368-69). This palm tree is said to be the incarnation of Beru Sibo, an adolescent girl younger than her six brothers. Her brothers left the village and travelled to all directions of the compass, where they involved themselves in gambling. Unable to repay their gambling debts, they were incarcerated by a village headman who promised to free them if the girl would become his wife. In despair Beru Sibo went to the forest and cried, then stamped the ground seven times and transformed into a palm tree. By producing palm water she could repay her brothers' gambling debts, as the sap or sugar could be sold (KAROSEKALI 1987). In another version of the myth, her brothers' quarrel about her bride price caused her to sink into the earth while dancing and singing. While singing she told her brothers, "Don't fight each other about the price of my body. Some days later you will find an arenga palm growing here. That is my body. You can tap its water (pola), make palm sugar (gula), and sell this on the market. That is the price of my body."

Both versions of the myth describe the origin of the arenga palm as the result of Beru Sibo's sacrifice for her brothers. Even today collectors of palm water, which are only men, treat the arenga palm as a sister (turang). Pola is also the word for a woman's breasts, the milk of which is like the sap of the palm. To Karo women, however, Beru Sibo is not just the spirit of the palm tree, which humidifies the land and refreshes people with its sap, but is regarded as Beru Dayang's elder, who accompanies her after the seeds have been planted in the rice field.

Beru Tole, the Younger

As was mentioned above, a dry wind is needed at harvest time. When the wind does not blow, the women complain that this is because Beru Tole has preceded Beru Dayang rather than followed her, as she properly should. Beru Tole (also known as Tole Mamana) is the spirit of the rainbow, which the Karo Batak associate with a long dry season. They say that one end of the rainbow is looking for water, especially that of the women's bathing place, which, as we have seen, has ritual significance. Long periods of dry weather, which can lead to crop failure, cholera, and skin disease, were thought to be caused by incestuous relationships (sumbang), as in the myth of Beru Tole (KIPP 1979, 1; NEUMANN 1927, 525; SLAATS AND PORTIER 1994, 239).

The myth concerns the relationship between a sister's daughter named Beru Tole and her mother's brother, called a mama. One day the mother's brother was on a bamboo watchtower (pantar) in the field, guarding the rice crops from birds. Beru Tole's mother asked her to bring him some food. Beru Tole was reluctant to do so, but her mother insisted. When she arrived at the foot of the watchtower Beru Tole said, "I am bringing your lunch, mama." "Bring it up to me," he answered. The most important part of the myth, which I collected from a storyteller,(29) is a long dialogue between Beru Tole and her mother's brother, who persuades her to climb the watchtower ladder step by step. When she finally reached the top he makes incestuous love with her. Immediately afterwards she gives birth, and she and her lover do not dare come down from the tower. When her mother comes to the field she hears the crying of the baby. Ashamed of the child, Beru Tole tells her mother that the sound was made by the mother's brother's cat.(30) When the villagers hear what had happened they try to tear the structure down. Beru Tole, her lover, and their offspring escape by fleeing to the sky, where they are transformed into the rainbow.

The Affinity of Beru Dayang, Beru Sibo, and Beru Tole

As mentioned above, the relationship between Beru Sibo, Beru Dayang, and Beru Tole is based not on their appearance in the same myth (their myths being different), but on an affinity arising from the fact that all of their myths concern specific kinds of love relations that constitute incest. Beru Sibo represents the cool refreshing affectionate love between brothers and sisters, which functions as the spirit of male love, as a young man calls his lover "sister" (turang). Beru Tole represents the love relation with the mother's brother, which functions as the spirit of female love, as an adolescent girl calls her lover "mother's brother" (mama). In other words, within the permitted relationship expressed by a marriage, the couple address each other with terms that reflect prohibited relations. On the other hand, Beru Dayang, as the spirit of love between mother's brother's daughter and father's sister's son, combines both these prohibited relations into a permissible sexual and affectionate love. Beru Dayang then, as the rice, unites the wet and dry seasons by means of the preferred form of marriage relation, and turns the arenga palm and rainbow into her elder and younger cousins. These two spirits in turn accompany Beru Dayang to the rice field. In the correct order, Beru Sibo precedes Beru Dayang and Beru Tole follows her.

THE EMBODIMENT OF AFFINITY

Reproduction

Beru Dayang and her cousins each occupy a part of the female body: Beru Sibo centers at the woman's breast (which, as we have seen, is called pola, along with the arenga palm), Beru Dayang at the uterus (mbuyak),(31) and Beru Tole at the vagina (tele memek). This elder-younger relationship also represents the correct order for movements during sexual intercourse and is thought to aid conception. In the ideal Beru Sibo, Beru Dayang, and Beru Tole order of lovemaking, first the breasts are fondled and then the belly, and this is followed by intercourse.

Barrenness and miscarriage are symptoms that may be caused by reversing the three-cousin order of entering a woman's body.(32) To correct these conditions the Karo Batak practice a shock ritual, called nengget. For instance, during the couple's dinner a gong may be beaten or water may be poured over the woman. Another shock is to confront her with a man who stands in a prohibited relation (rebu) to her, such as her husband's sister's husband (turangku) (GINTING 1989).

The same concept of disorder is applied when the dry season lasts too long - a woman who has married a categorial mother's brother (mama) is thought to be the cause. In the ritual of calling the rainy season (ndilo wari udan), she will have water poured over her and be mockingly called Tole Mamana.(33) In order to reinstate the correct order of dry and rainy seasons, the villagers divided themselves into two opposing parties who seek out and pour water upon each other's prohibited relations (KIPP 1979, 6-7). In this way Beru Tole, as well as the dry season, will turn over to stand in line behind her elder cousins. By pressuring the earth, the villagers invite Beru Sibo and the rainy season to enter the village.(34)

Birth

At birth humans are said to have guardian siblings, spiritual beings born at the same time as the person and who act as the person's guardian throughout life. The amniotic fluid and the placenta, which respectively precede and follow the birth, and which the Karo Batak call either saudara daging (sibling of the body) or saudara tendi (sibling of the soul), act as elder and younger sibling to the child (WESTENBERG 1892, 229; JOUSTRA 1902c, 407). The amniotic fluid is called si dayang mengencak," the lady that seeped away," and the placenta is referred to as si dayang menimpus, "the lady that covers something" (NEUMANN 1904a, 133). It is said of the elder sibling that she lives at the threshold (danggulen) to the door, while the younger sibling is said to live below the house, where the placenta is buried (WESTENBERG 1892, 229; JOUSTRA 1902c, 407). Si Dayang (i.e., the person) herself lives inside the house, or inside the moon, as the house is ritually known, together with a cat and a dog and spends her time weaving (NEUMANN 1904a, 141).(35) In the end she escapes as a white bird (NEUMANN 1905, 55).

The Interrelationship between Rice and the Human Body

A white bird, manuk-manuk si mbulan, is an image used for the soul (tendi) in the ritual of calling a lost soul (raleng tendi). In order that it be caught, it has to be enticed by chants and by leaves, which represent the total natural landscape. It is placed into a basket and enclosed in a protected space, like a body, a house, or a rice field.(36)

During pregnancy the spirit of both the rice and the human fetus are nourished at specific points of their development; the rice one month after being sown, and the fetus on the hundredth night of its existence. By being fed they are, in a sense, made identical with the species of animal or fish that they are fed with. The consumption of a yellow chicken, cooked into a curry (manuk sangkepi or manuk ratur)(37) starts this phase, in which the protection of the spirit is taken over by the woman's brother or parents (GINTING 1995, 9).(38) At the second nourishment ritual for the spirits of both the rice and the fetus, fish is added. In the seventh month of pregnancy the woman is visited by her brother or her parents, who bring a yellow chicken, crickets, and a cibakut fish;(39) this ritual celebrates the two-hundredth night, in which the fetus is thought to change into an animal that builds its home in the mud, with both crickets and mudfish representing this embryonic phase (GINTING 1995, 9). Similarly, eleven small cooked river fish are offered to the spirit of the rice on the hundredth night of its growth. According to informants, this fish, called nurung kaperas, should be caught in a large river by women using a scoop-net. The informants explicitly stressed the importance of the fish's nondomesticated nature.

The ritual phases of rice growth and the human prenatal life, then, mark transformations of a spirit from the sky, which is enticed and trapped by women using the natural vegetation. However, the human spirit is fed with the inner parts of domesticated fowl and animals belonging to the wet soil, while the rice, although it grows on the land, is fed with the outer parts of the fowl and with fish belonging to the river rather than to the land. By referring to rice as their daughters (anak beru), Karo Batak women mean to say that they are like both the rice seeds and the fish. Although born from the inside, they may not continue their inside relationship with the land by means of extending territory and replanting it - such a thing would be thought incestuous. Therefore, they have to move outside by marrying out, as symbolized by the river and the borders of house and field.(40) Nevertheless, as ones on the "outside," the anak beru (the daughters, their husbands, and their children) become an indispensable part of the society as a whole. Like the boundaries, they protect the land, the house, or the field, and contribute in this way to the prosperity of its owners. The same can be said of the rice. Cooked, she becomes si dayang merkata kata, "the lady that gives speech," and served, she is, most importantly, si dayang menjadikan jelma, "the lady that makes humans" (GUILLAUME 1903, 9-10).(41)

CONCLUSION

In their ritual chants of mangmang persentabin the Karo Batak address the beru dayang as grandparents who are a part of the domains of a beraspati. These beru dayang inhabit places located in the land(scape) and the house, which each have their own ritual significance. In the chant these spirits are united into a total body, the space of which stands in relation to the context of the specific ritual. Guru therefore compare these invocations to offerings.

In the dry rice cultivation Beru Dayang is the ritual center of the rice field. The various stages in the process of growing dry rice, which are all ritually addressed as si dayang, contribute to the birth of the rice as a particular body. However, the growth of Beru Dayang as rice does not stand on its own, but is connected to the arenga palm and the rainbow and linked with the alternating periods of the wet and dry monsoons. Beru Dayang then, as rice, unites the wet and dry seasons by means of the prescriptive form of marriage relations, and turns the arenga palm and rainbow into her elder and younger cousins. In this prescriptive form of marriage between mother's brother's daughter and father's sister's son, Beru Dayang encompasses the love relations of both mama and turang. These love relations are constituted on a prohibition of incest between brother and sister, as told in the myth of origin of the arenga palm, and between mother's brother and sister's daughter as told in the myth of origin of the rainbow. In permitted love relations, the terms mama and turang become expressions of endearment used by females and males.

Together Beru Dayang and her cousins constitute certain embodiments of seasons, sexual intercourse, reproduction, and birth, related to the female body and created on the basis of exchange. Exchange relations as constituted by marriage serve the reproduction of the human life force and the rice. The consumption of a rooster at marriage and the burial of a rooster at the field's navel should be understood in this context. Similarly, the ritual of calling back a lost soul is a repetition of the marriage of the person's parents. At the end the buried, eaten, or caught bird or rooster will transform into a complete new body, Si Dayang, whose form will be that of a human or of rice.

NOTES

The author is indebted to Jarich Oosten and Robert Wessing for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.

1. The word beru means "women," "girl," "beauty," and "new shoot" (NEUMANN 1951, 48); dayang is a lady-in-waiting (NEUMANN 1951, 64). As such a beru dayang is connected to palaces and kingdoms.

2. Nini is also a polite term of address for spirits.

3. The Karo Batak distinguish five beraspati. These are Beraspati Taneh (deity of the earth), Beraspati Lau (deity of the water), Beraspati Kerangan (deity of the forest), Beraspati Kabang (deity of those that fly), and Beraspati Rumah (deity of the house). Although there is a similarity between this term beraspati and the banaspati of Java and Bali, the latter refers to a forest spirit that later gained an evil reputation (VAN HIEN 1912, 143-44). In India, Vanaspati is the "Lord of the Forest," referring to a large tree (STUTLEY and STUTLEY 1984, 322). This same idea is found in Bali, where a shrine to him is located underneath a very large banyan tree (Ficus benjamina) located on the outer square of a temple (BELO 1966, 43-44).

4. Si Dayang, as rice, is thought of as a person and is addressed as such (NEUMANN 1904a, 10). JOUSTRA points out a more than coincidental similarity with the Javanese rice spirit Dewi Sri, but adds that Si Dayang also represents medical and ritual knowledge (1907, 59).

5. Like that of all ritual specialists, the specialization of a guru permangmang is thought to derive from spirit guides (jinujung) that he or she has married, and that enable the guru to communicate with other spirits. Each person is thought to have a jinujung (from the word jujung, to carry on the head) that guides him from the moment he is considered old enough to wander alone in the immediate surroundings of the village. These spirits belong to the opposite sex, with a male carrying a female spirit and vice versa (JOUSTRA 1897, 146-48; NEUMANN 1902a, 36). However, some jinujung also have another role, that of deciding whether a person becomes a guru (NEUMANN 1904b, 364). These jinujung are the spirits of persons who died a sudden death, and act as mediums (perkentas) between the guru and other spirits (JOUSTRA 1897, 146; 1907, 77). As HUMPHREY (1995, 153) pointed out for Mongolian shamanism, the souls of the remarkable dead, or people who died in a strange way, become the spirit-rulers of the land.

6. Among the various kinds of spirit guides, the spirit of a baby that died before its teeth erupted is thought to be the best messenger to a guru permangmang. The Karo Batak call this kind of spirit a bicara guru, "the guru's voice or way." The spirit announces itself with a whistling sound, produced within the throat, which the Karo say is the twittering, bird-like speech (dewal) of the jinujung (JOUSTRA 1902a, 9; 1907, 77; 1910, 168; STEEDLY 1993, 178). It is said that these spirits always address a basic principle rather than a specific case. In the past guru used parts of the bodies (preferably the liver) of such deceased babies to make pupuk (magical pulp). Placed into objects like magic wands, this substance was thought to give the guru preternatural powers (WESTENBERG 1892, 236-44; NEUMANN 1939, 536).

7. This specific text was sung by guru Pa Surdam (Sir Bamboo Flute), a nickname for the ritual specialist whose life history has been described by GINTING (1991). In STEEDLY (1993, 203-24) he is called Pak Tua. I recorded the Karo text (three cassette tapes) in July 1990. These were transcribed by Juara GINTING and translated into English by me. All the words were checked in JOUSTRA 1912 and NEUMANN 1951. A prior draft of the text was presented at the seminar Perceptions of Space in Southeast Asia, held at the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden in 1994.

8. In this sense there is a similarity with the Javanese dhanyang (cf. WESSING 1995, 197).

9. In English, these names mean, respectively, "the high hills as the lady who watches," "the savannah as the lady of the mat that is spread out on the lower and upperstream land," "the low-lying basin lands as the lady whose flames lick everything," "the gorges as the lady who receives," "the ocean as the lady grandmother dragon who lives in the waterfall," and "the river as the lady of the waterfall."

10. In English, these names mean, respectively, "the ridge as the lady with a panoramic view," "the center of the living place as the lady of the gatherings," "the central hearthstone as the lady of the meetings," "the navel of the hearth as the lady whose flames lick everything," "the ashes of the hearth as lady relocating," "the walkway inside the house as the lady who makes things longer," "the doors as the lady who is waiting," "the surroundings of the house as the lady who guards over borderlines."

11. The beru dayang si manjilam dangdang so bias, "the lady whose flames lick everything," is the spirit of a mate sada wari (someone who died a sudden, accidental death, a type of death seen as due to sorcery). Such spirits reside at offering places and protect the lives of those who live on its domain, animals as well as humans (NEUMANN 1927, 529, 532-33).

12. A depa is about 1.83 meters. In practice it is the distance between the fingertips of a person standing with his arms fully stretched out to the sides, and is roughly equivalent to the height of a person's body.

13. This betel leaf offering is analogous to the first stage of a marriage ritual, in which a betel leaf is offered by the groom's side to the bride's side (ngembah belo selambar, to offer a betel leaf; GINTING 1994, 55).

14. This handful of earth symbolizes the beginning of human creation. In the first stage of pregnancy, the Karo Batak conceive of the fetus as being the size of a handful of earth. According to my fieldnotes, the same actions are performed in choosing a house site. SLAATS AND PORTIER describe similar customs for the opening of a new compound (1994, 122). A dream is a good one if one sees many cucumbers (cimen) or catches numerous small fish, which NEUMANN's informants called the "soul," or spiritual element, of the rice (tendi page) (1902b, 375). Neumann adds that the term was only used in the interpretation of dreams, and that the cucumbers and fish do not really have to be the rice's soul. Apparently Neumann was not aware of the significance of cucumber and fish in the pregnancy of both humans and rice.

15. Bathing places for men and women are normally separated. JOUSTRA mentions a similar case of bathing together after the fields were ready for sowing (1897, 158-59). In this case it was part of the rain-calling ritual, ndilo wari udan.

16. NEUMANN thought that these plants, with their thick leaves that remain fresh for a long time, symbolize long life (1902b, 383). GINTING, however, points out that these plants represent specific colors, the combination of which refers to the affinity between mother's brother (yellow), represented by three stalks of the nderasi tree; mother (red), represented by the kalinjuhang; father's sister (black), represented by the besi-besi; and father (white), represented by the sangke sempilet. The unity of these is considered to be the starting point of life (1994, 28-30). "The Karo Batak also call the plants in the center of a rice field ingan tendi page (the place of the rice-soul). It refers to the idea that the 'center' is like the womb of the land, by which the colour combination of the plants is seen to be analogous to the elements of the womb" (GINTING 1994, 30). ADIMIHARDJA mentions a similar concept for the Kasepuhan of West Java (1992, 38).

17. When climbing a mountain, the same offering should be made to the king of the forested mountain top, the raja umang (WESTERNBERG 1892, 231). Umang are spirits that resemble humans, except for their short stature and backward-turned feet (STEEDLY 1993, 121). While umang may occasionally share their supernatural knowledge with favored humans, they are more often mischievous or aggressive. They are said to pelt intruders with rocks or even throw them down the mountainside. Umang are also reputed to have a penchant for human mates and are said to abduct "nice girls" and "comely youths," whom they might hold captive for years (WESTENBERG 1892, 232; STEEDLY 1993, 122). In spite of this view, the Karo Batak consider the raja umang of Mt Sibuaten and his human wife, the human daughter of the raja of Ajinembah, whom he took (buat) to his mountain, to be the spirits of the fertility of rice (GINTING 1994, 27). As a bride-price the raja umang built a multifamily house for the raja of Ajinembah during the night (SLAATS AND PORTIER 1994, 100). This house is considered to be the first Karo Batak multifamily house (rumah adat).

18. Buat means "to take" as well "to marry." Buaten means "cultivated land" (NEUMANN 1951, 55), but to the Karo Batak the word means "rice field." GINTING notes that sibuaten stands for "to take each other," "to marry each other" or "to strike each other," and points out the symmetry between the prefix si and the suffix en (1994, 27). "The term buaten in this context is connected with the idea that the opening of a rice field is the same as 'to take (buat) a field' from the forest (spirit)."

19. There are various different versions of this myth. In some, like that in DE HAAN 1875 (15) it is a woman who strikes the rooster that was sitting on a house's buffalo horns. WESTERNBERG mentions that the mythical bird was killed because he had dirtied the pool of the god of the middle world (1892, 218). JOUSTRA says that the bird was struck with seven palm-leaf veins by the god that lives across the sea, in order to give medicinal leaves preventing death to the mythical person that accompanied the god of the middle world to earth (1907, 120). In healing, seven palm-leaf veins are used to strike out illness from the body.

20. The Karo use the word manuk for both chicken and rooster. Chickens used in divination, birds in general, and the penises of little boys are called manuk-manuk (NEUMANN 1951, 188). It is not clear whether the star-speckled rooster (manuk cabur bintang) is a reference to the Pleiades, which signal the start of the planting season, though the combination of the appearance of the stars, the inception of the new season, and the role of speckled rooster as the origin of rice suggests a connection.

21. It is the custom that when marriage preparations have reached the final stage the bride may ask for something, like a piece of land, a water buffalo, or a particular piece of clothing or jewelry In this way there is something that keeps her spirit in her changed situation. As elsewhere in Indonesia, the Karo believe that a person's spirit may leave the body if it feels disturbed, in which case it has to be coaxed back as this condition is dangerous to the person's health.

22. Earlier publications like JOUSTRA 1902c (425) and NEUMANN 1902b (379) mention that in the Karo lowlands the mere page ritual was held at the start of the harvest season.

23. This sacred place is inhabited by the spirit of the land. The "grave," which is located upstream from the women's bathing area, is seen as a dead person's rice field in the afterlife and is planted with plants similar to the ones at the field's navel. The spirit represents the village social bond, the category of autochthonous people that is subdivided into the four classes of patrilineal descendants of the four village founders: the male children of the land (white), represented by sangke sempilet; the matrilateral parallel cousins of the land (red), represented by kalinjuhang; the female children of the land (black), represented by besi-besi; the wife-givers of the land (yellow), represented by arimas (croton; Codiaeum variegatum) (GINTING 1994, 91-93). A baby's first trip outdoors is to the female bathing place, as an introduction to the spirit that guards the community.

24. JOUSTRA noticed an important difference in the way rice is cut in the Karo highlands and lowlands: in the lowlands the ears were cut one by one using the pengetam knife and tied up into bundles (pungo), while in the highlands the stalks were cut near the ground using a sickle (sabi-sabi), after which they were bundled and sheaved (raden) (1907, 71).

25. The same decoration, to which small fish traps (tuar) edged with white hen's feathers were added, was placed on top of the spirit boats used in the second mortuary ritual of Karo Batak who belonged to the kin group (merga) Sembiring si ngombak (those who drift down the ashes of their death). The drifting down was related to an abundant harvest (JOUSTRA 1902d, 543-44). The feast - ideally held annually in September on the day after the full moon - was only celebrated in the Sukapiring area of the eastern Karo highlands. This area falls within the agricultural zone of "upstream land" (julu), where sowing takes place in November/December and the harvest falls in June/July.

26. As a result of individual ownership, the rice barns have now completely disappeared. Rice barns were placed at right angles to the houses. This was explained to me as a way to prevent the river from washing away the rice, as the houses were aligned with the flow of a river. As was mentioned, rice fields should also be placed at right angles to the river.

27. This stone, called the tooth of the lightning, can be found in a banana plant (galuh si tabar) that has been struck by lightning (NEUMANN 1905, 56). This banana plant is a transformation of the head of the male mythical bird. It is regarded as the king of the people, and is used in life-cycle rituals as a replacement for the male human body (JOUSTRA 1907, 120-21; GINTING 1994, 70-80).

28. According to GUILLAUME (1903, 9), rice being winnowed in the wind is called si dayang topeliasken, "the lady who gives clarity."

29. A short version can be found in KIPP 1979 (5-6).

30. According to KIPP, the child was a tomcat (1979, 9).

31. Sembuyak (from one belly) is the term of reference for a patrilineal descent group.

32. The reversal of the order, in which Beru Tole precedes the other two, is also a sexual joke among Karo women and often elicits chuckles from them, as it refers to a lack of sensitivity to female arousal by some men.

33. SLAATS AND PORTIER give a description of such a ritual (1994, 243).

34. KIPP gives a description of this ritual, which takes place in the village center (1979, 7-10). Four long pandanus leaf spines are secured by one end in a hole made in the earth. Four older women each take one of the leaves at its loose end and, moistening their hands with water from nearby buckets, pull on the leaves with long upward strokes, hand over hand. This produces an odd sound, a loud groan like the sound made by rubbing a balloon, which is the sound of the bellowing of thirsty cattle.

35. The cat, we have seen in the myth of Beru Tole, represents the relation with the mother's brother. SLAATS AND PORTIER cite a myth that mentions a ritual in which a mother's brother's daughter adorned a cat with jewelry used in rituals by females. The cat was adorned with earrings, a necklace, a headcover, and covered by a dyed woven cloth, after which the woman called upon the deities to destroy the village. Thunder, rain, and wind arrived, destroying all the houses and killing the inhabitants (1994, 87-88).

36. GINTING gives the text of a chant sung by a female guru to call this white bird - also named dayang - and entice it into a basket (baka) (1994, 124-39). The four corners of the basket are each adorned with twelve wild and medicinal plants, together representing the natural vegetation of the landscape. In the past these baskets were used for storing valuables that had been received in ritual exchanges. These valuables were meant to be worn on such ritual occasions, and consisted of, for instance, woven cloth, jewelry, and money, and also the exhumed bones of the founder of the house. The basket was stored in the house roof (GINTING 1994, 121-24).

37. The main ingredient is a yellow chicken (or a combination of a white, a black, and a red chicken), its blood, coconut, and rice. The yellow (gold) color of the chicken represents the woman's parents or her brother. A pregnant woman should eat this chicken's gizzard, breast, and neckbone, as these are thought to influence the fetus's inner skin and cartilage.

38. From this moment on the woman's mother will stay with her, while the husband has to sleep in the jambur (men's house) at night (GINTING 1995, 2).

39. The cibakut is a fish with poisonous spines at its mouth. It lives in the mud of riverbanks and rice paddies (NEUMANN 1951, 280). Collecting crickets and mudfish is done mainly by women at times when they gather at ritual occasions. The cibakut are conceived to be the reincarnated skin dirt of men, and the crickets to be the corpses of reincarnated ancestors.

40. In the past, on ritual occasions, unmarried adolescent girls wore an indigo-dyed headcover, called batu jala (stones tied to the edge of a fishing net) or batu peranggu.

41. TERWIEL relates a myth of the Lokapannatti of mainland Southeast Asia in which it is told how, after consuming rice without husk or chaff, spirits became visible and sexual differences became apparent (1994, 18).

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