Batak

Batak is an umbrella term for a number of ethnic groups that live in the highlands of North Sumatra, Indonesia. These groups include the Toba, Dairi, Pak Pak, Karo, Alas-Kluet, Angkola, Mandailing, Simalungun, and several other related groups. Although they are closely related, these groups all speak distinct languages of the Austronesian language family and have unique cultural traditions. According to Indonesia's census in 2000, the Batak had an estimated total population of about 6.1 million people, and by 2010, their population was estimated at 8.5 million people. Historically, the Batak are believed to have descended from a proto-Malayan people living a largely isolated existence in the highlands around Lake Toba until 1825. While the Batak once commonly practiced local religions, most are now adherents of Islam or Protestant Christianity, particularly as members of the Batak Christian Protestant Church. Traditionally, the Batak are socially divided along separate patriarchal group lines called marga. Although many Batak have relocated to urban areas over time, they still often rely on marga affiliations for financial and political purposes, a tradition that helps reinforce their distinct ethnic identity.

Background

The Batak traditionally live in the northern highlands of Sumatra, an Indonesian island in the Malay Archipelago. Sumatra borders the Andaman Islands in the north and the islands of Bangka and Belitung, as well as the Karimata Strait and the Java Sea, in the south. The backbone of the island is formed by the Barisan Mountains, which run northwest-southeast for approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers). Much of the rest of Sumatra consists of plains, swampy lowlands, and mangrove forests. Sumatra also boasts a complex river system highlighted by the 300-mile (480-kilometer) Hari River. The 440-square-foot (41-square-meter) Lake Toba is the largest of Sumatra’s many lakes.

Outside of the highlands, Sumatra has a hot, moist climate. A unique array of flora and fauna can be found across the island. Among Sumatra’s many forms of plant life are bamboo, myrtles, orchids, rhododendrons, Sumatran pines, oaks, palms, chestnuts, ironwoods, sandalwoods, camphorwoods, ebony trees, and rubber-producing trees. Animal life on the island is equally varied. Common species include orangutans, apes, tigers, tapirs, elephants, gibbons, flying lemurs, tree shrews, civets, wild boars, and Sumatran rhinoceroses. Sumatra is also home to the Mount Leuser, Kerinci Seblat, and Bukit Barisan Selatan national parks.

Sumatra is divided into seven provinces, including North Sumatra (Sumatera Utara), Jambi, Riau, West Sumatra (Sumatera Barat), South Sumatra (Sumatera Selatan), Bengkulu, Lampung, and the autonomous province of Aceh. Its largest cities include Medan, Palembang, and Padang.

Most Sumatrans speak languages that are part of the Austronesian language family. Historians believe that Austronesian speakers first arrived in Sumatra from other parts of Southeast Asia around 2,500 years ago. By the eleventh century CE, much of Sumatra was under the influence of the Srivijaya Empire, which eventually fell to the Javanese Majapahit Empire in 1377. European traders and military forces first made contact with Sumatra in the sixteenth century. Early English claims to parts of Sumatra were revoked by Anglo-Dutch treaties signed in 1824 and 1871. After that, much of the island remained a Dutch colony until Japanese forces occupied Sumatra during World War II. In 1950, Sumatra officially became part of the newly independent Republic of Indonesia.

Overview

The Batak are a collective of closely related ethnic groups found in Sumatra’s northern highlands. The specific groups categorized as part of the Batak include the Toba, Karo, Simalungun, Pak Pak, Mandailing, and Angkola peoples. While the term Batak was likely coined by Indigenous outsiders such as the Malay during Sumatra’s precolonial era, each of the ethnic groups it encompasses has come to embrace it as a self-designation to some degree. The various Batak ethnic groups are primarily linked by their speaking Austronesian languages and sharing a common written language.

Historians believe the Batak descended from a proto-Malayan people who lived a relatively isolated existence in the highlands around Sumatra’s Lake Toba. Indigenous cultural influences began to permeate Batak society by the second or third centuries CE. Specifically, the Batak gradually adopted some Indigenous cultural ideas about government, religion, writing, and arts and crafts. Still, the Batak stopped short of developing a unified state, instead maintaining their traditional cultural divisions.

The most important aspect of traditional Batak culture are patriarchal and patrilineal clans known as marga. Functionally, each marga acts as a wife-giving and wife-taking unit. Margas also practice bridewealth, which means that a husband’s family provides the wife’s family with gifts and services in exchange for the wife eventually being allowed to join her husband’s marga. Even among modern Batak people who live outside of traditional villages, the marga remains an important social unit upon which one can rely for financial support and political alliances.

Despite living in a geographically isolated region, the Batak have a long history of contact with the outside world, primarily through trade. Specifically, the Batak often exchanged salt, cloth, and iron for gold, as well as rice and cassia. Contact with outside people, such as missionaries, also had a significant impact on the Batak’s religious beliefs. Although some local religious traditions persist, most modern Batak adhere to Protestant Christianity or Islam.

In contemporary Sumatra, many Batak depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. The most commonly cultivated crop among the Batak is rice, which can be grown wet when there is sufficient irrigation water and dry when water is in short supply. The Batak also often grow peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, and beans and raise cash crops like tobacco, coffee, cinnamon, and various fruits. In addition, some also grow peanuts or practice fish farming. The Batak have established a presence in many other professional fields as well. In Sumatra’s larger cities, many Batak work as teachers, journalists, clerks, and civil servants. In fact, the Batak are considered one of Indonesia’s most literate and well-educated peoples.

Twenty-first century Batak and their traditional lands remain relatively unaffected by the encroachment of modern society. The Indonesian government’s transmigration program transmigrasi did not impact the Batak as much as it did their Acehnese neighbors. As a result of that, and because their lands hold little in the way of oil or natural gas resources, Batak territory has gone largely untouched by industrialization. Still, government policies often prohibit the use of Batak languages in many aspects of public life, which means that the prominence of these languages is diminishing. Government legislation also banned traditional farming methods of the Batak in the early twenty-first century, leading to undernourishment, which predisposed them to diseases like malaria and tuberculosis.

Bibliography

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