LIFE AMONG THE B ATT AS OF SUMATRA. 109 

 LIFE AMONG THE BATTAS OF SUMATRA. 



By Dr. A. SCHEEIBEE.* 



ALTHOUGH the Battas have a writing and a very limited litera- 

 ture, it has never occurred to any one among them to compile 

 and preserve their historical traditions. Consequently their history, 

 as we know it, reaches hack for only a short distance in time, and 

 gives no clew by the aid of which we can learn when and whence they 

 came to Sumatra. They are not able to trace their origin to any 

 greater distance than the highlands of Toba, where the greater part of 

 their people now dwell. The tradition of their derivation from Toba 

 prevails, so far as I know, among all of their tribes, on every side of 

 the highlands. We are not well enough acquainted with the interior 

 of Northern Sumatra to be able to state how far they may have 

 pressed toward the southwest ; but they are found in the south to the 

 equator and on the west and east in single spots to points immediately 

 on the sea. They seem to have conquered their settlements in the 

 southern districts a considerable time ago, and to have subjected or 

 destroyed the Malayan aborigines. 



We will go into a Batta town early in the morning. The night- 

 mists have not yet disappeared from the woods around, but we al- 

 ready hear a bustle, as we are approaching the edge of the village, 

 of women pounding rice. The rice, which is the principal food of the 

 people, is always kept in the hull, and is thrashed out day by day as 

 it is needed. The thrashing is done with hard-wood pestles eight or 

 ten feet long in wooden mortars made from a stump or a log. It is 

 hard work, yet the women are frequently accustomed to perform it 

 with their babies strapped to their backs, where the infant is exposed 

 to all the abrupt and awkward oscillations of the mother's head. The 

 rice must be carefully cleaned after it is thrashed, for the lord of tho 

 house will not be trifled with, and, if he finds a husk in his breakfast, it 

 may turn out a bad day for the woman. 



The town is composed of a street about fifty feet wide, with a row 

 of respectable-looking houses, all built on piles, on either side. We 

 are, in fact, in a land of pile-houses, and nothing more than a glance 

 around is needed to convince the visitor of the fallacy of the notion 

 that all the pile-houses were built in lakes. The Batta houses are 

 some eight or ten feet high, frequently set up on still higher poles. 

 The poles are not very large, but are made of wood selected for its 

 lasting qualities, and often of heart-wood. They are planted in the 

 ground in rows, and so connected by cross-bars that, shake as much 

 as it may in time of storm or earthquake, the house will not fall 



* Abridged from articles in " Das Ausland." 



