Stories from Deli

Deli Courant 22-08-1885

MY STAY IN NAGASARIBOE: About my dwelling, the old half-rotted, scarcely used Balé, I have already written the necessary; now I will give an account of the daily life among and with the Battas, as I witnessed it during my stay of three weeks at Nagasariboe.

First to appear in the early morning, around five or six o’clock, were the younger women and girls to fetch water, gather firewood, and take a bath in the icy cold temperature. The older women attended to the yarn that had been soaking in the dye pots all night, winding it carefully onto spools in order to apply a new extract of salnun over it, or sometimes they also brought the weaving loom outside to weave a piece of cloth, squatting in the chilly morning air and wet grass, so that the sound of weaving looms could be heard from all sides. Amidst this, the dull thuds of the rice pounder echoed, as another part of the female population had been busy since the first light of dawn, husking the paddy for their Honorable Lords’ morning meal. The grunting of the many confined pigs, the lowing of the cattle, the neighing of the horses, the bleating of the goats, the crowing of the cocks, and the clucking of the hens, all liberated from their nocturnal pens and now wanting food, completed the morning concert. The thick mists, which usually obscured any view at night and gave the village a somewhat eerie appearance, now began to slowly retreat into the surrounding forests with the rising sun. As the sun fully rose above the horizon, the inhabitants of the village also appeared, initially still sleepy and shivering from the cold, wrapped in their warm cloths. Most of them came towards my improvised house, which they climbed with comfortable sighs, less to greet me in the morning than to attend to their needs through one of the many holes in the Balé floor, causing the gradually spreading odor to become so unpleasant that I found it better to move outdoors.

The men and older youths spent the rest of the morning partly squatting around my fire, conversing with me about my intentions, or they groomed and trained their horses, of which there were about thirty in the village. The older and more distinguished Battas also occasionally gathered around the Radja, who always held court in the morning on the open, somewhat elevated grassy area in front of my house, where one or two spears were stuck into the ground as a sign of the court day. During these court sessions, the Radja was always assisted by the two highest officials of the village, who bore the titles of Anak baroe and Sanina.

If the Radja was hindered or absent, then with the Radja’s consent, the administration of justice and policing were carried out by the Anak baroe with the help of Sanina. Justice was administered according to the following principles. In imposing a fine, the most common form of punishment, the Radja received two-thirds and the Anak baroe with the Sanina, one-third. In cases of theft, the stolen property owner received half of the fine, while the other half was divided between the Radja and the two judges according to the above-mentioned scale. Treason against the country, murder, or adultery with a Radja’s wife could not be compensated with money but only with life. I take this opportunity to add another observation, which struck me forcibly. Making a suspicious noise in company (sit venia verbo) is considered a great disgrace; if this happens in the presence of a Radja, it is a crime punishable by death. However, if an unfortunate lover does it in the presence of his beloved or bride, or in the presence of a distinguished person of the opposite sex, it often happens that the offender, overwhelmed with shame, commits suicide with his kris.

Around ten o’clock, the men and women went to the fields, which, during my journey in December, had already been mostly plowed. The rice in the ladangs was almost at the bow stage; however, sawas were only established in a small number due to lack of water, and the rice had not yet sprouted. The corn, however, which is the main staple after rice, was growing beautifully and partly ripe. The corn fruit is simply roasted and eaten, or as a delicacy, but then only when unripe. In the fields, I also saw plantings of beans, tapioca, and bananas here and there, as well as some banana trees. The fields were worked with either a plow or an iron rake. In addition to field tools, there were also two strong sticks with a fairly pointed end, with which the holes necessary for the rice grains were made. The rice variety was the same as that used throughout the entire Archipelago. The prosperity of a village depends entirely on the harvests that the residents manage to obtain for themselves.

Land ownership, in general, is organized similarly to our society, and the well-defined plots enclosed by earthen walls or fences, especially the sawas, are hereditary private property. Poor people wishing to have a piece of land, or families requiring more harvest due to their increased numbers, find plenty, even if it is poor land, in the surrounding vast ladang fields, which are burned every year for this purpose over miles in circumference. However, the hard, usually still green, lalang grass, burned rapidly in the fire, does not turn into a fertile, enriching ash, but into a hard, lean, black charcoal, which resists all chemical influences, even those of the weather, making the lean land even more infertile and less productive. I saw on my journey miles of lalang fields strewn with such lean, dark black charcoal, often half a foot high, through which no other plant could penetrate except the hard end of the lalang grass. Therefore, rice yields on these lalang plains are only seven to thirtyfold, up to fiftyfold in better places, while in the coastal plain, it yields a hundredfold, and in the Lpesoen region, probably even more. This is one of the main reasons for the migration of the Battas to Deli and the blessed lands of the foothills.

Around four to five o’clock, the fieldwork was finished, and everyone returned home; the men went to bathe and then attend to some domestic matters, while the women dealt with feeding and housing the various domestic animals, fetching water, pounding rice, in short, attending to their domestic affairs. Once I saw people deliberately improving a defective house, using bamboo ropes, something I had never seen before. These ropes were made in the following manner: a long bamboo was split open along its entire length, flattened with a wavy, swinging motion, split into many strands about a finger’s width, and then twisted together. If the length of a bamboo strand was not sufficient, another one was added in the same way, resulting in strands of fifty, sixty to seventy feet in length, as thick as a small child’s fist. The rope is exceptionally strong and can withstand great tension. The heavy logs for the house repair were pulled by several men, but mainly by dozens of women, girls, and children, using these rope-like strands, accompanied by a song. An old woman walked at the front, continuously beating a gong.

By nightfall, around seven o’clock, the whole village had returned to rest; only the sound of rice pounding could still be heard. However, the houses were much noisier; the men smoked, chewed sirih, talked, and the women made the necessary preparations for the meal.

After eating, around eight o’clock, my house filled up again with guests; men who came to talk with me and my people, and even children seeking satisfaction for their curiosity. The politeness and good manners that prevailed during these visits cannot be praised enough, and their conversation was so interesting that I often fondly remembered the pleasant and very instructive evenings in Nagasariboe.

One of the main topics of conversation was the Batta Till Eulenspiegel, Si Djenaha, and the story of his mischievous deeds. Usually, his opponent was the Salamonding, who was also quite adept at deceiving people and often tricked Si Djenaha, but his pranks were of a more good-natured nature. The following may serve as an example of the pranks that these favorite Batta figures would perform. Si Djenaha and Salamanding were on their way to the market together, Si Djenaha carried a load of cotton wrapped in palm leaves, but the cotton vase was a fraud, it was nothing but worthless lalang blossoms. Salamanding carried a load of sugar wrapped in palm leaves. Before they arrived at the market, Si Djenaha proposed that they should exchange their goods. After thinking about it for a long time, Salamanding agreed. Si Djenaha immediately took the load of sugar on his back and gave Salamanding his lalang blossoms. However, how surprised and deceived he was when he returned home to find that the sugar was nothing but sand. Thus, both of them had fooled each other.

I often deliberately brought up religious matters in conversation. The stories they told me about this give me more and more the conviction that in this area, where Europeans have never set foot and Malays have only rarely had access, where the original Batta religion and tradition have thus been preserved fairly intact, the influence of Islam on the former nature religion and the later Hindu traditions can already be clearly seen. (To be continued.)