Extent: 34 unnumbered pages (recto), 36 unnumbered pages (verso) : illustration ; 8 cm x 6 cm
Note:
Title supplied by cataloger. A Batak bark book, or Pustaha, typically created by a medicine man of the Batak tribe known as a datu. Text is written in black. Some in line illustations and figures. Written on two sides and bound accordion style with tree sap. "Here is an original Sumatran Batak magical manuscript or "Pustaha" containing traditional instructions for divination and other practices. An oracle as well as an object of personal power, the Pustaha is one of the three essential tools of the traditional shaman or "datu" of the Toba Batak people of northern Sumatra (the other two being the magical staff and medicine horn). The content of... "Though these books do serve as a written record of Batak tradition, many remain untranslated, or even untranslatable as the Datu developed their own unique shorthand writing system, some of which was known only to the priest who wrote it. Ethnographers of the early 1900s sought information about the contents of these works from living priests, and even they found certain texts extremely... ""The Batak alphabet, which is written from left to right, is related to other Indonesian scripts all ultimately of Indian origin, including Lampung, Rejang and rencong in south Sumatra, Bugis and Makassar in Sulawesi, and Javanese and Balinese." (Source: Batak Manuscripts in the British Library, Asian and African Studies blog 11/28/2016. NB: one of the illustrations in the present manuscript... "The Batak people are associated with a distinctive writing culture. They reside around the volcanic Toba Lake and in the mountains of northern Sumatra. At one time they were considered fierce warriors who practiced ritual cannibalism until they became subjects of the colonial Dutch East Indian government. The Batak retain a rich animistic tradition with complex rituals, funeral rites, etc. In... "The modesty and relative simplicity of our example's design and text, including a limited number of simple symbolic illustrations and the exclusive use of black ink, suggests it was made by one of the datu for personal use, and NOT by local craftsmen and women for the tourist trade. The latter are easily distinguished by the use of multiple color pigments and cartoonish "primitive...
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