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Toba Batak ethnobotany

a
B K Maloney
a
Department of Geography, University of Rhodesia, 1978, Salisbury, Rhodesia
Version of record first published: 03 Aug 2007.

To cite this article: B K Maloney (1978): Toba Batak ethnobotany, Indonesia Circle. School of Oriental & African Studies.
Newsletter, 6:15, 18-28

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 18

TOBA BATAK ETHNOBOTANY

B K MALONEY

Ethnobotany can be briefly defined as the study of uses to which man

puts wild or cultivated plants.

The Batak homeland is in highland North Sumatra but many people have
migrated to the lowlands. The ethnic group is sub-divided into a number of
sub-groups varying slightly in cultural traits such as language and customs.
These are: Toba, Karo, Pak-pak, Dairi, Timor, Mandailing, Raja and Simelun-
gun.

The Toba Batak are said to be the oldest sub-group. They live south of
Lake Toba and arenumerous but no reliable estimate of their population exists.
As at least 250,000 migrated out during the period 1950-1956 (Cunningham,
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1958) it is obvious that there was then an imbalance between population and
resources.

The area actually studied is shown in fig 1. A rough evaluation

suggests that this has a population of c30,000 and the sparsity of forest
indicates the great effect of man on the vegetation; only a few small stands
of what seems to be either disturbed primary forest or disturbed secondary
forest remain.

Detailed studies of Batak ethnobotany exist (Bartlett, 1926; 1930; 1931)

but are confined to plant usage among the Karo and a group of Batak living in
Asahan, south-west of Lake Toba, who speak a sub-Toba dialect. Information
about uses of plants by the other sub-groups is presented by Heyne (1950).
To keep this article short this literature will not be reviewed.

The Toba Batak are sedentary farmers who mainly cultivate rice and rear
pigs but also grow some millets. Their wet rice (sawdh) agriculture is typi-
fied by a short fallow of no more than one or two months, and dry rice farming
(tadang) by one lasting from many months up to several years depending on the
state of the land. Less important at present are the root crops, taro
(Coloaas-ia esoulenta) and sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), of which there are
at least two varieties. Cassava is also planted. The taro is used with
organic waste from other sources as pig fodder.

Numerous fruit trees are grown, including species of Eugenia3 Musa3 and
Macadam-La. Pass-iftora quadrangular-is3 a vine, is cultivated, and the fruit
is used to make a drink called marhisa.

European and mainland South-east Asian vegetable crops are included with
tobacco, coffee, pineapple and maize among more recent introductions, and
some tea is grown.

Plantations of Pinus merkusi-i and Symingtonia ipoipulnea exist but are the
result of a national reafforestation project and are not an indigenous Batak
development; the groves of Styrax benzoin may be, however. The wild species
of Styrax is tapped for latex, and it is used as a glue and as a resin which
can be employed in embalming. It is also a traditional export from Batak-
land, but not as a cash crop in the Western commercial sense.
 •^THAILAND 140"
KHMER ./VIETNAM

0 km 500
6 -
-6*
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- 4'

(N 0
• 2*

O 140"
l-h
• 0' ^ SUMATERA
C Q y BARAT

rt
H SUMATRA
• 2° wv- V WITH INSET OF
SOUTH-EAST ASI.A
96*

Provincial boundary
8'
o*
a*
Land over 1000m 150 100 0 100
kilometres

Study area -6°

100* 102* 104*
/* BKM/SG
 20

Plant materials are not not utilised as a form of dress or personal

ornamentation, but bark cloth may have been used in the past.

The main use of forest trees is in house building, and the forests may
have suffered due to this in the past, as the traditional Batak house is
large and requires much sturdy timber for the main posts. A substantial
quantity of less strong material was probably employed for the walls. Mod-
ern dwellings seem to be largely of the latter fabric, partly, perhaps, be-
cause of changed social conditions, but the primary reasons might be the cost
and non-availability of suitable wood and lack of skilled joiners; no nails
are used in traditional houses.

Really good quality timber, such as Daarydvum3 which will take a polish,
is scarce and is used for making the best furniture (mainly chests) and
coffins.
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The uses of timber trees are summarised in Table 1. Unfortunately

lists of the genera or species employed in the construction of an individual
Batak house or houses were not obtained. However, planks forming the walls
of. the large traditional houses are bound together with lianes or Arenga
where necessary, while the roofs are thatched with a sedge, Sozvpus
mucronatus. Thatching is now dying out, not apparently due to any lack of
materials but possibly through loss of skills and because of the availability
of corrugated iron, which is more durable.

Smaller items such as mortars and pestles for grinding be.tel arid pepper
are often of wood, usually good quality material, but the larger ones for
rice are commonly of stone, despite the scarcity of solid rock in the area.
Cangkol (hoe) handles are of brushwood, while bamboo is used for a variety
of purposes ranging from fishing rods, musical instruments and traditional
calendars to lime containers. In the past the Batak were masters of book
production, using bark for the pages and bindings' and indigo ink.

Brushwood, often weedier Lauraceae species, is collected from the

forest (the tombok) which belongs to the whole community, but most of it
comes from the scrubby areas and is used for fires. The ferns Vtevidi-wn
aquiii-num (bracken) and Diovanopteris linearis are abundant and burn well.

Plant fibre, especially of the Movaceae, is made into matting, ropes and
string. No information was obtained about which taxa are used in dyeing,
but red, white and black are the most important pigments, and the black is
likely to be from indigo.

Fruits of a number of forest species are eaten or taken as drinks, see

Table 2, but only two taxa, Xevospermum novorihianwn and Sohima walliohi-i, are
said to be used as poison, whole more non-forest than forest plants are
utilised medicinally. It should be noted, though, that the author was not
accompanied by a datu ('medicine man') as the local person was severely dis-
abled, so it is possible that only the most commonly known applications have
been discovered.

Data on the medicinal uses of plants are presented in Table 3. In a

few cases only the sap was important, but frequently the leaves or the whole
plant were boiled up.

A number of herbaceous non-forest taxa such, a Monoohoria vaginalis.

 21

which is found in the sawah, are. used as vegetables while the fruits of some
of the scrub plants are eaten. Rhodomyrtus tomentosa is particularly
significant as the berries are gathered and fermented to make gimlet, "Toba
dream', a drink with a low alcoholic content.

Polygala panioulata is used as shampoo and, therefore, presumably has a

high lanolin content.

The generalised information about plant usage in the study area is

presented in Table 2 together with the Toba Batak names where it was possible
to find these out. The names of certain taxa for which no use is known have
also been collected, but for the sake of brevity they will not be listed
here. There are a number of taxa for which neither a name nor a use could
be obtained.

The sources of the information about forest plants were an old Batak
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man who accompanied me into the forest and a man from the local forestry
headquarters. Non-forest data are from Aston Sihombing and other Batak who
live at Lingtongnihuta Pardolaan, near Siborongborong.

It may be stated in conclusion that it is obvious that the Toba Batak

use a wide range of wild plants in addition to the cultivars, but it is
possible that a datu might be able to list a far greater number of applica-
tions than this study shows. Ethnobotany was of secondary value to the
purpose in hand, which was to collect ecological information and cores of
lake and swamp sediments for pollen analysis, so it was not thought that the
time taken to transport the dried plant specimens to the datu for identifi-
cation every so often would have been all that profitably used.

Department of Geography, University of Rhodesia,

Salisbury, Rhodesia, 1978.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Fieldwork was undertaken in Sumatra with the permission of the Indonesian

Institute of Science and the sponsorship of the National Biological Institute,
Bogor. Herbarium specimens were mainly collected by myself and the men of
Marga Sihombing and were identified by Mr Nedi, Mr Soedarsomo and Miss
Afriastini of the Herbarium Bogoriense. The research was financed mainly by
the National Environment Research Council.

REFERENCES

Bartlett, H H (1926)
'Sumatran plants collected in Asahan and Karoland, with notes on their
vernacular names', Papers Mioh Acad Soi, Arts and Letterss 6 : 1-66.

Bartlett, H H (1930)
'The labors of the datoe: Part 1: an annotated list of religious,
magical and medicinal practices of the Batak of Asahan', Papers Mioh
Acad Sci3 Arts and Letters3 12 : 1-74.
 22

Bartlett, H H (1931)
"The labors of the datoe: Part 2: directions for the ceremonies',
Papers Mich Sci. Arts and Letters, 14 : 1-34.

Cunningham, C E 0-958)
The postwar migration of the Toba-Bataks to East Sumatra, Yale University,
Southeast Asian Studies, New Haven.

Heyne, K (1950)
De Nuttige Planten van Indonesie, Veenman and Zonen, Wageningen.

TABLES
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TABLE 1: Uses of timber trees

pillars walls heavy building furniture coffins light unspecified

planks (general) timber

Artkrophyllum javanioum +
Schefflera aromatioa + +
S. elliptica *
Elaeocaxpua maorooeiue +
Garoinia luoena +
Lindera sp. +
Litsea sp. +
Talawna sp. +
Dysoxylum exaelaum *

Boraf-ieldia of. gldbra

Aphanontyrtua minima
Rhodamina ainerea *
Syzygium (Eugenia) elliptilimbum
S. graoilia
Syzygium spp.
Ligustrum glomeratum
Dacrydiim sp.
Pygeum paxviflorum
Aaronyokia XaweifoVta
Saurauia cf. nudiflora +
Turpinia montana
Symploaoe sp. +
Sahima walliehii
Indet.
 TABLE 2: Uses of plants : general information

food/ container fibre poison timber/ medicine/ ceremony/ Toba Batak name
rivinV
drink fl rpunnd
firewood snan
soap rpiioi'nn
religion

a. forest taxa
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. Arthrophyllum javanicum sepang2

Maoropanax dispermum simar eme2 juraok2
Sohefflera aromatioa simar eme2/monis2

S. elliptioa handuluk

Aristoloohia ooadunata andur tali

Saroandra glabra simar eme2 lantana

to
Elaeooarpus maoroaerus modung korbe

Lindera sp. andalimon

Litsea sp. mar1asiak/modung

gembiri
Garoinia luoens serit danak

Talaunia sp. modung

Memeoylon exoelsum tala

Aphanamixis sp. podum2

Dysoxylum exoelsum sali

Artooarpus cf. dadah pinasa

Fious sagittata anduras

 TABLE 2: Uses of plants : general information (continued)

food/ container fibre poison timber/ medicine/ ceremony/ Toba Batak name
drink firewood soap religion

Horsfieldia cf. gldbva modung

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Aphanomyrtus minima handuluk limon

Rhodamina oinerea hanhoting balanga

Syzygivm etliptilimbum handuluk pea/sadik

S. graoitis handuluk

Syzygivm spp. handuluk/handuluk

batu
Ligustrvm glomeratum pailun to

Arenga saooharifera ijuk

Daemonorops aff. singalana pakkat/buar2

Pinanga paradoxa simar pining2

Pandanus furcatus antunung

Piper sp. andur

Bambusoideae ?

Dacrydium sp. sampinur

Pygeum parviflorum hanhoting
Rubus pyrifolius bulu
 TABLE 2: Uses of plants : general information (continued)

food/ container fibre poison timber/ medicine/ ceremony/ Toba Batak name
drink firewood soap religion

Ixora sp. simar kopi2

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Aoronyohia laurifolia handuluk

Xerospexmum noronhianum tuba

Sauvauia cf. nudiflora monis2

t
tahur/monis2
Turpinia montana
sihumbil
T. sphaerooarpa
Ioba2/baloba
Symploaos sp. to
01

simar tolu
Sohima walliohii
tele
Celtis sp.
langi
Amomum sp.
hawaik
Indet.
tandiang
Cyathea sp.
bunga s i r i
Selaginella intermedia
b. non-forest taxa
Centella asiatioa ampa paga

Colooasia eseulenta suhat

Sohefflera elliptiaa hauhandolok

 TABLE 2: Uses of plants : general information (continued)

food/ container fibre poison timber/ medicine/ ceremony/ Toba Batak name
drink firewood soap religion

Bidens pilosa aloesi

Crassooephalum orepidioides sidurma

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Emilia sonchifolia sijunkot

Eupatorium inulifolium bunga2 merdeka

Viburnum ligustrum ?

Ipomoea batatas suhat

Sairpus muoronatus bayun to

Gaultheria leuoocarpa sia2
Breynia cf. miorophylla podum2
Nymphoides cristava sirambon
Rhodoleia ohampioni bani
Fagraea elliptioa sibatuhan
Urena lobata ssp. vimenea sampilulut
Melastoma polyanthum s anduduk
Leptospermum flavesoens selum
Rhodomyrtus tomentosa harimonting/lau 2
Oxalis oornioulata sarupape
 TABLE 2: Uses of plants : general information (continued)

food/ container fibre poison timber/ medicine/ ceremony/ Toba Batak name
drink firewood soap religion

Hymenaohne indiaa simar doi2

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Poly gala panioulata simar Iae2 ni loti

Monoehor-ia vaginalis sipophrok

Pandanus cf. spinosissimus antuno

Rubus ohrysophyllus allabo

Wendlandia gldbvata allabo

Lindevnia anagallis simar atie2

to
Nephvolepis biserrata

N. aouminata

Dioranoptevis liniavis
var l-Lniavis sampilpil

Crypsinus trilobus

Ptevidi-im aquilinvm arsan

Pteris vittata

CyolosoTus un-itus pahu2

 28

TABLE 3 : Plants used medicinally

Medicinal use/s

Hypevioum japon-icvm for fevers, sores and wounds

Centella asuztiea for sores and wounds

Bt-dens pilosa for sores and wounds

Urena lobata ssp. vimenea for sores and wounds

Hymenackne i-ndica for chapped lips

Melastoma polyanthim
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for stomach illnesses

Crassocephalim ovep-idioides for stomach illnesses

Oxalis covniculata for stomach illnesses

Aphanami-x-is s p . for stomach illnesses, is also

blood congealant

Selaginella •intermedia for stomach illnesses, is also

blood congealant

Eupatovium inuli-folium blood congealant

P-iper s p . blood congealant

Em-ilia sonoTvifoli-a for headaches, fainting fits

Cyathea s p . for yaws

Nephrolepis acunrinata for chest complaints

plus Gaultheria leuoocarpa

and rugi2 (name?)

Amomum s p . unspecified