Stiff winds sweep unchecked across Lake Toba as early morning sunlight spreads across the water. Fishermen in dugout canoes have been out casting their nets for hours. The cool temperature on the water is surprising, considering that the lake is only two degrees north of the equator.
Samosir Island draws steadily nearer, its tall peaks shrouded in swirling mists, its past, in mystery and legend. Here and there, bright patches of blue appear in the gray skies over the island. The narrow coastline glistens in a green patchwork of terraced hills and valleys. On one side are low coastal hills marked by an occasional building; on the other, mountains rise steeply up into the clouds.
Lake Toba lies in the heart of what the indigenous Toba Batak call Tapanuli (beautiful shore) in north Sumatra, Indonesia. The Batak are a collection of clans: the Toba, Mandailing, Simalungun, Angkala, Kora, and Pak-Pak. As all Batak legends can be traced back to Samosir, the Toba are believed to be the oldest clan, from which all the others probably descended. The earliest ancestors of the Batak came to Sumatra from Burma and Thailand around A.D. 500.
The first European to visit this area was probably Marco Polo. He visited Sumatra and later wrote of a people in the interior who "devour their enemies." But it was not until 1783, when an explorer named Marsden trekked into the jungles, that an accurate account became available. Marsden wrote of a "land of extraordinary natural beauty" but also of the "paradox of [a] cannibalistic people with a real culture and a written language."
For the Batak, strangers and enemies were synonymous, and outside contact was to be avoided. Their reputation for cannibalism was a great deterrent to unwanted visitors. Human flesh was not, however, a regular part of their diet. Cannibalism was apparently undertaken on ceremonial occasions; to punish crimes against certain aspects of Adat (traditional law), such as incest, or taking the wife of the radja for one's pleasure; and to kill captured enemies. Marsden quoted one villager as saying, "Nothing is so reassuring as knowing my enemy lies within my stomach and can do no further harm."
Near the village of Ambarita, one can still find a site called the "King's Table." Hand-hewn stone chairs surround a table where the last king is said to have devoured his fiercest opponent, thus ending many years of conflict.
The Batak Today
At the time of Marsden's first encounter with them, the Batak had a well-established culture; their artisans created superb wood carvings, jewelry, weavings, and other essential crafts. As with many ancient cultures, the quality and power of their artistry had developed over an extended period and was maintained as long as their society retained its traditions. When the traditional cultural base deteriorated, however, the arts just as quickly lost their power.
The deterioration of the Batak's traditional culture began with their first real contact with the West--an influx of European missionaries in the mid-1800s--and their conversion to Protestantism. Shortly thereafter, their lands were invaded by the Dutch. The Batak were eventually subjugated in the
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