Male progeny and the journey of the soul

Both boys and girls were welcomed into the world, but boys had an additional value because they continued the descent line of their father and could defend the village against enemies and help the family to become affluent. But these were not the only, and perhaps not even the main, reasons for the desire of male progeny. According to Toba Batak religious beliefs—described in detail by Warneck (1909)—only sons could ensure the spirit of his parents rest and an honourable place in the hereafter. ²⁸

The Toba Batak conceptualized death as the moment a spirit (begu) snatches away the soul (tondi) of a dying person, which lives on in the invisible form of a new spirit (begu). The spirit desires a reunion with his ancestors in the realm of the death; and therefore the corpse must be buried close to the graves of other members of his marga. Spouses are buried next to each other so they can live on as a couple in the hereafter. Life in the hereafter is conceived of as a continuation of life on earth. The only difference between humans and spirits is that the ways of the latter are the opposite of the former: they walk backwards, have their markets at night, eat with their left hand instead of their right, and so forth.

The world of the spirits was envisioned as a hierarchical one. The highest positions were reserved for the spirits of people who were the ancestors of a large lineage: the sumangot and sombaon. A spirit could be elevated to the status of a sumangot after its descendants had honoured it with a grand mortuary ritual on his death. Subsequently, after a year or more, the remains would be exhumed and the bones deposited in a sarcophagus in the large ritual called mangongkal holiholi.²⁹ A sumangot was regarded as a raja among the spirits, and had the power to bestow blessings on his descendants and protect them against evil spirits causing the failure of crops, illness, or other misfortune. The lineage therefore had a vested interest in organizing the two-staged mortuary rites for its great rajas. But these rites could be held only for those rajas who had many descendants in the next generations, who possessed the necessary material resources and large kinship network to stage the mangongkal holiholi ritual.³⁰ The excavated bones would be deposited in sarcophagi made of stone or wood. A large offspring (hagabeon), wealth (hamoraon), and social esteem through many kinship alliances (hasangapon) thus not only determined the power and status of rajas in this world, but also the status of their spirits in the hereafter.

Of an even higher status than the sumangot were the spirits of the ancestors who lived

27 Renes-Boldingh 1933:93-102. Note that the girl’s fate was the same of that Si Boru Surbajati in the myth of origin.

28 The following on the Toba Batak perception of the realm of the dead is based on based on Warneck 1909:82-9.

29 In this ritual, for which the preparations were lengthy and which took place over a week or longer, the community of a large geographical area (horja) took part. The ritual was suppressed by the Batak Mission because it disapproved of the cult of ancestral spirits and the gondang music (Marcks 1931:53, 55), but it was still practiced in the 1930s (Vergouwen [1933] 1964:71). For a description of this ritual staged in post-independence Indonesia, see Simon 1984.

30 The importance of wealth is stressed by Warneck (1909:101): ‘The one who has money and livestock, is not only a respected man in this life, his goods also guarantee him a privileged position in the other world’ (Wer Geld und Vie hat, ist nicht nur in diesem Leben ein angesehener Mann, seine Güter garantieren ihm auch im Jenseits eine bevorzugte Stellung).

RMV, no. A13-2b. Photograph by K. Feilberg

22. Storage of a corpse next to the house in the village Nagasaribu (1870)

TM, no. 60045346

23. Wooden coffin with singa head (1930)

22. This photograph was taken at a poor village close to the northern shore of Lake Toba (which explains the Karo Batak-style architecture of the houses).

To the left of the house in the foreground, a coffin is placed on wooden supports, covered by an extension of the roof. The deceased is stored there until the family is able to stage the funeral on an auspicious day according to the Batak calendar.

23. A wooden sarcophagus, supported by wooden beams carved with the stylized head of a lion (singa), sits next to the animal pen beneath the ornate house of a wealthy family.

Mortuary rites confirming individual and marga status: burial of the deceased and re-internment of ancestors (mangongkal holiholi)

RMV, no. A56 11. Photograph by E. Modigliani

24. Dancer wearing a mask on a ritual hobby horse (hodahoda) at a funeral (1890)

KITLV, no. 405380. Collection G.L.

Tichelman.

25. Exhumed remains of ancestors ready for re-internment in a sarcophagus or tomb (1935)

Sibeth 1991:81 (scan) 27. Two funerary urns

TM, no. 10016785

28. Grand stone sarcophagus near Huta Naibobo, Samosir (carved ca.1840; image no date) ]

RMV, no. A17-29. Photograph by H.M. Neeb 26. A simple sarcophagus in Si

Temorong (1904)

The remains of ancestors were re-interned in a variety of ways. Some containers were simple, others impressive. Large sarcophagi and modest round stone urns have been found mainly on the island of Samosir and in Toba (Sibeth 1991:79-80).

26. Photograph taken during the expedition against Singamangaraja XII led by H. Christoffel in 1904.

This relatively simple burial monument must have been built for a member of the marga Situmorang on Samosir.

many generations ago, called sombaon. Each area in the Batak region had its own sombaon. For example, the four ruling marga in the valley of Silindung, the Siopatpusoran, all used to worship the sombaon Siatasbarita, who resides on the summit of the mountain of the same name. The sombaon were thought to have an even greater power to bestow blessings than the sumangot, such as fertility on women and the fields of their descendants; but when offended, they could also spread death and destruction.³¹ The ceremony held in honour of the sombaon was the santi or santirea ritual, referred to in the quote above. To lift a sumangot’s spirit to the status of a sombaon, a handful of the earth from its burial place was taken to a new abode—a landmark in the landscape, such as a large, extraordinary tree, the top of a mountain or a protruding rock.

Although the sombaon resided outside human settlements, they used to have a place of worship in the market (joro), and rituals were occasionally staged there. During the ritual, the spirit of the sombaon would communicate with the living through a spirit medium.

Besides the sumangot and sombaon, there were the begu of commoners. If he/she had been blessed with many children who had sufficient means, they would make the deceased a grave in the village compound close to the rice barn. Then there were the insignificant begu of small children who had to be given an offering near the wall of the house, as they were usually buried within the village compound.³² The spirits of older but still unmarried children, buried outside the village compound, were only rarely given an offering, and likewise those of married adults who had left behind a poor family.

If a man or woman died without leaving a son behind, the spirit would become a despised begu, a slave of other spirits populating the afterworld. A daughter could help her father or mother’s spirit be accepted in the abode of the dead only by giving it offerings, but this would not change its subservient status. Worse off was the spirit of a childless person, which, according to some sources, was considered not even to have a soul (tondi).³³ Such a spirit would not be given entrance to the village of its ancestral spirits, but had to roam about isolated and forlorn in the fields—a truly pitiable fate. It had to feed itself on the smell of the offerings given occasionally by people who were afraid of the harm it could cause. Not even material wealth in this world could ensure such a person a better life in the hereafter.³⁴

There were also numerous obnoxious begu and the spirits of people who had died in a way despised by the Batak. The spirit of a woman who had died in childbirth was the most feared; one thought that it would go after the souls of her children and that it was a grave danger to other pregnant women (Warneck 1904:70, 78-81). A protection against such feared begu was to have one’s teeth filed before marriage, because the spirit might follow a woman with unfiled teeth and cause her death (Winkler [1925] 2006:141).³⁵ If a woman nevertheless died in childbirth, the most horrifying death of all, her corpse had to be treated in a special way to prevent her spirit from coming into contact with the living and taking away their souls:

31 When the first Toba Batak converted to Christianity, it was the sombaon of the region who was feared: he might take revenge on all the marga descended from him. For a description of such a reaction to this by the pagan community, see Van Asselt (1906:194-7).

32 Ypes (1932:171, 316), reports that in Laguboti a baby who died before it was given a name—called a bobok poso—was buried without a coffin next to the house, in the hope that the mother would soon conceive again. On Samosir this was done out of fear that the little corpse would be dug up by people who wanted to make a pangulubalang (decorated stick considered to have magic powers).

33 Warneck 1909:76; Ypes for the Dairi Batak (1932:19).

34 Warneck (1909:73, 76-7, 80, 99 ) on the spirit of a childless person.

35 For this reason it was not easy for the Batak Mission to root out the custom of tooth-filing (Chapter 8, page 187-9).

One binds the hands on the corpse’s back, binds the feet, and fills the mouth, eyes, and ears with ash. One lifts the floorboard and just throws the corpse out of the house; under the house, where livestock is held, the corpse is thrown on the floor and left for the cattle to trample on. One is not allowed to bury the corpse outside the village, because an enemy might steal the corpse to use it for the fabrication of a pangulubang (magic stick of the datu). All pregnant women in the neighbourhood throw burning torches in front of the ramparts of the village and wave knives, whereas their husbands shoot their rifles. All this to frighten off the dangerous spirit of the woman who has just died in childbirth (Warneck 1909:77). ³⁶

Compare the heinous treatment of such a woman’s corpse with that of a great raja whose body was kept embalmed with very expensive camphor in a wooden coffin in the house until the fields had been harvested and the funeral ceremonies could begin. For the festivities, many buffaloes were slaughtered, of which the horns and jaws would later adorn his grave. After the burial, ceremonies could continue for as long as a year (Marsden [1873] 1975:387-8). Even a commoner was properly buried, although without any ceremony.³⁷

This account of burials, funeral rites, and the beliefs about journey of the soul informs us about several gendered differences. First, the spirits of ancestors which attained the highest status of a sombaon or sumangot were usually known by male names. Perhaps their wives enjoyed the same status, but that remains obscure in the literature. Second, only male descendants could stage the mortuary rites to promote the spirit of an ancestor to a higher level in the spirit world.

The sole contribution daughters could make was to present offerings to the spirit of their parents without male offspring, to ensure their entrance in their final abode as subservient spirits. Third, a man and a woman who died childless were truly ‘lost souls’, cut off from the company of the spirits of their kin in the hereafter. The Toba Batak longed desperately for a son in order to avoid that sad fate. But the most pitiable lot of all was reserved for the woman who had the misfortune to die in childbirth. Her spirit was not revered, but feared and ostracized from the community of other spirits, her corpse denied a descent burial.