Conversion to Christianity, ostracism, and ‘Dutch brides’

The RMG began the missionization of the Batak in 1860, after it had been forced to give up its mission field in South Kalimantan, where a number of missionaries and their families had been killed by the local Dayak. Missionary zeal flared after the RMG Missionsinspektor F. Fabri informed the RMG board that Islam had already made significant inroads in Mandailing and Angkola, whereas the Batak in the north were still pagan.³¹ The still independent Batak lands thus seemed the ideal new mission field.

In 1861 the RMG dispatched the missionaries C.C. Klammer and W. Heine, who had both previously worked in Kalimantan, to Sumatra. There they met G. van Asselt and W.F. Betz, two Dutch missionaries who entered the service of RMG, after the Dutch missionary society, the Java-Comité, had consented to this. The four men convened in Sipirok on 7 October 1861, a date later chosen as the founding date of the Batak Protestant Church, the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (HKBP). At this meeting it was decided that Klammer and Betz would stay in Sipirok (Angkola), whereas Van Asselt and Heine would settle in Pahae, a region still outside the jurisdiction of the Dutch at the time.

The rajas of Aek Sarulla and Sigompulon in Pahae received Van Asselt and Heine in a friendly manner, allowing them to build a house and tend to the sick and needy. But otherwise they were indifferent. Heine (1863:184), for example, had to hold a large feast for forty rajas from Sigompulon and Pangaloan in proper Batak style (slaughtering a buffalo) after the construction of a school building was completed, before they would even consider sending him four boys for instruction.³² The rajas probably mistrusted Van Asselt because previously, while still living in Sipirok, he had worked as an overseer for the Dutch government; this may have instilled the fear that he would force the population to build roads and plant coffee. But most decisive for the aloofness of the rajas must have been the hostile attitude of the notorious raja Kali Bonar in Pahae, who held sway over them. It suffices to mention here that in the following decade very few people in Pahae converted to Christianity. It was fifteen years before this changed, after a young raja, Ama ni Holing, embraced the new faith (Schreiber 1876:394-6).

In 1861 Van Asselt and Heine had also explored the prospects for the mission in the valley of Silindung. Raja Pontas of the marga Lumbantobing received them cordially, which made them optimistic. Still, it was another three years before a third missionary from Germany, I.L.

Nommensen, went there. It turned out that he was not welcome at all. An assembly of rajas tried to scare him off, but they did not go so far as to harm him.³³ Eventually Raja Aman Dari—also of the marga Lumbantobing and village head of one of the largest villages in southern Silindung—

agreed to sell the persevering missionary, who refused to go, a piece of unfertile land prone to

31 By chance, the RMG Missionsinspektor F. Fabri, had read Junghuhn’s book on the Batak and had seen parts of Neubronner van der Tuuk’s Bible translation during a visit to the Netherlands the previous year. Fabri then decided to consult the board of a Dutch missionary society, the Java-Comité, which had three missionaries working among the Batak population in Angkola and Sipirok (Warneck 1912b:21-4; Aritonang 1994:115).

32 Heine, W (1863), ‘Allerlei aus Sumatra’, Kleine Missionsfreund 179-88.

33 The sources differ on why the rajas did not oust the missionary. Was it because Nommensen had successfully intimidated the convened rajas by showing a letter from the Dutch Indies Governor-General that permitted him to start missionary work in the region (Berichte der Rheinische Mission 1865:198)? Or because he threatened to write the names of the rajas in a large book, which made them fearful because everything written in Batak script used to involve magic, both white and black (Warneck (1912b:51)?

Van Asselt 1905

39. Portrait of missionary G. van Asselt and his wife (1905)

Der Kleine Missionsfreund 1865:5:66

40. The school in Sigompulon, Pahae, one of the first missionary schools in ‘Little Toba’ (drawing, 1865)

KITLV, no. 106313. Coll. L.V. Joekes 41. Silindung: view of rice fields (1915)

RMV, no. A14-1-57. Photograph by K. Feilberg 42. The southern shore of Lake Toba (1870) Silindung and Toba were

the most populous regions in the Batak country, due largely to intensive wet-rice cultivation. In 1861, the missionaries G. van Asselt and W. Heine went to Silindung for the first time to explore the prospects for the mission. In 1876, two other missionaries viewed the southern shore of Lake Toba from the Toba Plateau for the first time, immediately realizing its potential for mass conversion due to its large population.

Early beginnings, Sipirok, and Pahae

The most promising fields for missionary activity: Silindung and Toba

43. Portraits of missionary Ludwig Ingmar Nommensen (1834–1918)

In die Welt, für die Welt, 1984, 2:39 a. Shortly before his dispatch to

Sumatra in 1861 as a young man

Photograph VEM (scan from Niessen 1993) 44. Portrait of Raja Pontas Obaja

Lumbantobing (d. 1900) The most important raja to support the Batak Mission, and close friend of Nommensen.

Warneck 1912

b. In the prime of his life

Wikipedia c. In old age

Moving forward together

flooding on the border of the river Batang Toru.³⁴ Not daring to take this step of his own accord, Raja Aman Dari first availed himself of the support of three other rajas in the vicinity. One of them was Ompu Bumbung (also called Ompu Sabungan of Parbubu), whom Cleerens and Henny previously had assisted in peacemaking negotiations with an aggressive raja by the name of Ompu Tjoboe (Henny 1869:49-50).³⁵ Ompu Bumbung was thus interested in strengthening a relationship with the colonial government and probably for that reason was friendly to Nommensen.³⁶ One thing is clear: these four rajas were not motivated to help Nommensen because they were interested in Christianity. They withheld any further support to him, even forbidding his trusted Batak helpers from Barus to fell the necessary trees to build a house. They did not convert until many years later.

Nommensen’s missionary activities nevertheless soon bore fruit: in August 1865 he baptized eight adults and five children, two families of the marga Hutagalung, and one of each of the marga Sarumpaet and Nasution (Hutauruk 1980:518). The first two families belonged to the ruling marga of their villages. Among these first converts were two remarkable men: Maja of the marga Hutagalung, baptized Abraham, was a former priest (datu); and Ama ni Panggomal of the marga Sarumpaet, baptized Isak, was a medium for ancestral spirits (sibaso).For their communities, the conversion of these men must have been a tremendous shock: in Ama ni Panggomal they lost a man who had fulfilled an important role in their rituals, and in Maja, someone to whom they could turn in case of illness. About the personal reasons of these two men for embracing Christianity, the missionary sources remain silent. Perhaps Nommensen’s argumentative skills, highly respected by the Toba Batak, and his superior healing ability won them over.³⁷

The Batak Mission had a very good reason to rejoice, because the first Christians in Silindung were free Batak, whereas the converts they had made so far in Sipirok in the south were former slaves who had fled their masters after the abolition of slavery in 1859, a policy implemented by the Dutch in Sipirok in 1862. Their flight provoked the anger of their masters, who considered the loss of their slaves an economic blow, but they could take no action to bring them back.³⁸ On the other hand, the conversion of the slaves did not disturb the fabric of society or the veneration of the ancestors.

In Silindung and later in Pahae, however, conversion led to severe social tensions, precisely because the Christians were not slaves, but regular members of their clans. When they refused to partake in any harvest or life-cycle rituals, the communities to which they belonged were extremely upset, probably at first astonished that an individual could decide to step out of

34 According to Tobing (1964: 243-5), Raja Aman Dari did this favour for the missionary because he was impressed by Nommensen’s forecast that his sick wife, whose condition was considered beyond hope, would recover.

35 The other two rajas were Raja Ompu Sinangga of the marga Hutagalung, and Raja Ompu Tarida (Tobing 1964:244-245;

Hutauruk 1980:102, 317, note 113).

36 Hutauruk (1980:101-2) has emphasized that the political situation in the region at the time shaped the conditions for the acceptance of Christianity, suggesting that the rajas hoped to ensure future acknowledgement of their titles by the colonial government by helping Nommensen.

37 Nommensen was not averse to using his ability to cure (he was knowledgeable about homeopathy) to ‘blackmail’

families to convert. In 1875, he gave a sick boy, the only son of his parents, medicine only after the couple had promised to convert and not take part in the ritual for the marga’s ancestor on the next day. (Letter by Br. Nommensen, 5-7-1875, KIT, Batak instituut, doss 36, C 38, pp. 11-14).

38 Schreiber 1876:366-7; Koloniaal Verslag 1877:76. In the long run the conversion of the slaves proved unfortunate for the Batak Mission, because the more influential and formerly slave-holding families turned their back on Christianity. In 1867, the most distinguished raja of Sipirok embraced Islam.

the fold.³⁹ They would have felt a deep fear of the wrath of their ancestors: if their Christian descendants failed to honour them, the ancestors would certainly retaliate by causing crop failure, infertility of the women, and general chaos.⁴⁰ The communities staged rituals supplicating the ancestors to show their might and bring misfortune on the missionaries, which often did not yield the desired result.⁴¹ Families and community leaders also tried to bring the Christians back into the fold of the old faith. Ama ni Panggomal (Isak), the spirit medium, had a particularly hard time: at the wedding of a nephew, his clansmen made him sit in the centre of the village during the festivities while the gondang orchestra played, hoping that the spirit of the ancestor would take possession of him as before. When this did not happen, they wanted to put him in the block, but somehow Isak managed to escape (Warneck 1912b:45-7; 63-4).

Because it turned out that the Christian converts were unwilling to give up their new religion, the Toba Batak rajas decided that strong action was called for to avert the revenge of the ancestors: they ordered the expulsion of the converts from the community. They forbade them to take their transportable wooden houses and rice barns with them to the location where Nommensen had settled, which he had given the name ‘the village of peace’, Huta Dame.⁴² They had to leave behind their rice supplies and were forbidden to till their plots of land, because they refused to participate in the necessary pre- and post- harvest rituals. The village chiefs also forced the Christians to settle their debts, increased with the normal high interest (of course considered abnormally high by the missionaries).

Under these circumstances, the missionaries had no other choice than to provide shelter and protection to their Batak followers. The few rajas who allowed the Christians to move to their village also demanded a material reward in return. The missionaries, hard pressed for money, pictured the situation in the bleakest terms to convince the RMG board in Germany that their allowances needed to be raised. The report of their conference held in August 1867 dramatically stated: ‘the Christians are in danger of their lives if they stay in the village’.⁴³ Their request was granted. In the course of time, the Christians managed to see to their needs by clearing new fields, and after the initial resistance on the part of the ruling clans in the area, were able to survive.

The first converts also faced the problem that their bridegiving and bridetaking clans wanted to break off the kinship relationship with them. How this worked out in practice is detailed in the report of the missionary conference of 1867. Although the terms ‘bridegivers’ and

‘bridetakers’ are not used in this report—probably because the missionaries thought the board in Germany might not understand the intricacies of Batak kinship—it is not difficult to make out what problems of the Christians with their affines were meant.

The Christians were most hard-pressed by their (prospective) bridetaking families (marga boru). They told Christian fathers: ‘our brides have now become Dutch (Wolanda), do not

39 The missionaries were dead-set against their participation in what they called ‘the service of the spirits’ (Begu-dienst), which always involved traditional music played by a gondang orchestra. Because of the tremendous power of this music over the mind of even the Batak who had become Christian, which they witnessed occasionally, the Christians were not allowed to attend any ceremony where the gondang played.

40 The same fear took hold of them when missionaries made a frontal attack on the abode of an ancestor. For example, in 1873 missionary Van Asselt ordered the chopping down of a large tree which was revered as such an abode (Van Asselt 1906:194-9).

41 For examples, see Warneck (1912b: 58-59; 86-88). Warneck stated that the ineffectiveness of the rituals and other actions merely undermined their belief in the old faith.

42 An indirect sneer at the Toba Batak rajas’ aggression against their Christian kinsmen?

43 VEM, Fb,1 KP 1867, Silindung I. (n.p.)

want to take part in our old customs anymore’ and broke off the standing betrothals, an act of sirang, expressed by the demand to return the advance on the brideprice they had already given.⁴⁴ This statement reflects their opinion that a Christian man was not a Batak anymore, but a Dutchman, a person who was not a member of their own community, a person with whom it was therefore impossible and undesirable to enter into a marital alliance. The demand for the return of the advance of the brideprice posed enormous problems for the Christians. Just ousted from their villages, they were destitute and could not fulfil the obligation imposed on them to redeem their daughters. A Christian man in Nommensen’s congregation had no less than six daughters, four of them already betrothed. Nommensen, feeling obliged to help, used a large part of his yearly income to refund the advances of the brideprice to the families of their fiancés (Warneck 1912b:72). Hard-pressed, too, was a poor man in missionary Heine’s congregation in Sigompulon, who had received no less than 210 guilders in total as advance payments of the brideprices for three of his daughters.⁴⁵

Bridetakers who had received a wife from the Christian families in the past also put pressure on their Christian affines. They demanded the settlement of obligations that had been left standing, and the replacement of women who had died without (male) offspring in the (sometimes distant) past—according to the custom known as ganti tikar or singkat rere described in Chapter 5. The conference protocol of 1867 clarified that the Batak sometimes inherited such an obligation from their father or grandfather thirty to sixty years back. Because their ‘debtor’

had become a Christian, these bridetakers were not interested in receiving a replacement bride in a foreseeable future, but insisted on the settlement of the account in cash.

Married sisters and daughters of Christian men must have been dismayed that their bridegiver had rejected the ancestral religion. But they were probably not directly affected by his conversion, because they had become a member of their husband’s family upon marriage and therefore continued to follow the old faith. The 1867 protocol reported only one case of a married woman who was sent back to her converted Christian family. The fact that she had not yet born him children was used by her husband as an excuse for the repudiation of his wife. He demanded the refund of the brideprice.

The pagan bridegiving families (hulahula) of the Christian families also wanted to severe ties with the latter and required them to pay off all their debts incurred in the past. These debts consisted of parts of the brideprices for the Christians’ grandmothers, mothers, and wives which the Christian family had not yet paid, but which their bridegivers had refrained from claiming until then.

The patrikin of the converts, their dongan sabutuha, who had evicted their Christian clansmen, added to their predicament by making demands that were also related to the contraction of marriage by marriage gifts. They had helped their converted kinsman in the past when the latter had to amass the brideprice for his wife or daughter-in-law. These contributions, the so-called tumpak, were now asked to be returned, which was not at all customary.

So far, the harsh sanctions inflicted on the Christians were by members of their own lineage members and their affines. Ostracism or ‘civic death’, as Viswanathan (1998:79) has

44 The quote comes from the missionary report of 1867 (VEM, Fb,1 KP 1867, Silindung), but was probably an accurate repetition of what one bridetaker had actually said.

45 Heine also called upon the readers of the missionary magazine for children (Der Kleine Missionsfreund) to help out (‘Brief des Missionar Heine aus Sigompulan auf Sumatra vom 2. Januar 1867’, Kleine Missionsfreund 1867: 58).

worded it following current legal terminology, was common when individuals who belonged to a religiously homogenous society or a powerful majority stepped out of the fold. As in the Indian Hindu community, Batak converts were denied access to communal and family property. But apart from that, ‘civic death’ always takes forms particular to a given society. In the case of Toba Batak society, it entailed the severance of relationships based on exogamous marriage by way of claims on the restitution of gifts exchanged at the time of betrothal and marriage.

Cut off from their patrikin and affines, the Christians had no one else to turn to in their predicament than the missionaries. Realising that it was impossible to help out in all cases, the missionaries made a pragmatic choice. They choose to redeem only the daughters of Christians who were betrothed to a pagan man. To the missionary board in Germany they wrote that they wanted to spare the girls ‘dreadful misery’ (grausames Elend), because if the girls had to marry their heathen fiancés, they would certainly be obliged to take part in the pagan ceremonies in their husband’s village. For this purpose they requested extra money. Although the missionaries were willing to pay in cash, they were unable to help all the girls of Christian families. If a girl still lived with her parents, there was no problem. But if she had been handed over by her father to his creditor as a ‘daughter in-law with a debt on her head’ (boru ni hotang) they met with resistance, because creditors were not always willing to give up the girl or, according to the missionaries, tried to make the most of the opportunity by asking an excessive amount of money for her release. The missionaries thus inferred that a creditor was driven by the prospect of pecuniary gain, but he may just as well have made an excessive claim in order to express his disgust for the conversion of the girl’s father.

Cut off from their patrikin and affines, the Christians had no one else to turn to in their predicament than the missionaries. Realising that it was impossible to help out in all cases, the missionaries made a pragmatic choice. They choose to redeem only the daughters of Christians who were betrothed to a pagan man. To the missionary board in Germany they wrote that they wanted to spare the girls ‘dreadful misery’ (grausames Elend), because if the girls had to marry their heathen fiancés, they would certainly be obliged to take part in the pagan ceremonies in their husband’s village. For this purpose they requested extra money. Although the missionaries were willing to pay in cash, they were unable to help all the girls of Christian families. If a girl still lived with her parents, there was no problem. But if she had been handed over by her father to his creditor as a ‘daughter in-law with a debt on her head’ (boru ni hotang) they met with resistance, because creditors were not always willing to give up the girl or, according to the missionaries, tried to make the most of the opportunity by asking an excessive amount of money for her release. The missionaries thus inferred that a creditor was driven by the prospect of pecuniary gain, but he may just as well have made an excessive claim in order to express his disgust for the conversion of the girl’s father.