Many scholars view Batak people in Northern Sumatra as one of the most powerful ethnic groups among the 230 million people living in Indonesia.

Approximately 6 to 7 million people, the Batak ethnic group currently mingles with other communities throughout the archipelago, where they play important roles in the nation's political, intellectual, artistic and economic lives. There is no definite data on the exact number of Batak people, but it is believed there could be more than 10 million.

Every Indonesian may have a friend, a neighbor, a teacher or doctor who is Batak, the group which is divided by scholars into six distinct groups: Mandailing, Angkola, Toba, Pakpak /Dairi, Simalungun and Karo Batak.

Scholars have identified the Batak people as descendants of the first Austronesians, once known as the Proto-Malay, a Mongoloid people who began migrating to Southeast Asia from Southern China or Taiwan as far back as 6,000 years ago.

According to ancient myths handed orally from generation to generation, the original home of the Batak people was on the shores of Lake Toba, isolated in the mountainous area of North Sumatra. Outside myths and legends, little was known about early Batak history until their lands were discovered by a group of Christian missionaries and the Dutch colonial administration in the early l9th century.

Knowledge of their religious, social and cultural background, especially their artistic works is however, very limited.

Even a noted banker, Miranda Goeltom, admitted that many of the indigenous Batak from her generation knew very little about their ancestors' history and traditions, which formed a strong part of their cultural identity.

"Neither my mother nor I were born in Batak lands, my father migrated with his parents to Java at the age of 9; part of the great Batak diaspora which came into being after the migration of Batak people from their homelands at the beginning of the 20th century," Goeltom wrote in a book about Batak Sculpture.

Unlike Javanese and Balinese art and culture, which were widely exposed through various scholarly and popular works; books, exhibitions, performances and other promotional activities, there is little record of the life and culture of indigenous Batak.

Only a few books, collections and exhibited art works are available for further study.

The publication of the 368-page glossy and colorful book, Batak Sculpture, authored by German scholar Dr. Achim Sibeth and noted American art writer and critic Bruce W. Carpenter, is a significant milestone in the study of Batak art and culture.

Published by Singapore-based Editions Didier Millet, the book beautifully displays the evidence of the remarkable Batak art and culture. Browsing through every page of the book is like traveling deeply into the Batak homelands, unknown to many Indonesians. .

In the first part of the book, Bali-based author Carpenter opens with critical discussion on whether Batak art, in this case Batak sculptures, can be rightfully defined as "art" in the highest sense of the word, or as just artifacts, products created by "primitive" people . Western scholars view Batak art, Carpenter writes, as art from an "alien culture" that exists outside of the Western context of art.

Thanks to the advent of ethnology between the late 19th century and early 20th century, perception shifted.

The so-called primitive art was no longer viewed with apprehension, as "the devilish work of barbarous heathens", but rather as a source of knowledge that could provide useful insights into human history, Carpenter states.

Batak sculptures were first introduced to the West by a small group of scholars, Dutch colonial officials and businesspeople, at the end of the 19th century in the Dutch East Indies (today known as Indonesia).

These pioneers included ethnologist G.P. Rouffaer and his prot*g*, Dutch graphic artist W.O.J Niewenkamp. Both of them published books and articles and avidly collected a broad array of Indonesian art, including Batak works.

These scholars played a vital role in promoting and protecting the traditional arts of Indonesia, while at the same time stimulating the interests of museums and universities in the West to collect and study Indonesian art. These changing attitudes were not limited to Holland. Two Germans, A.R. Hein (1890) and Ernst Grosse (l894) also deserve recognition for their early appreciation of tribal art as art.

In the course of modern art history, primitive or tribal art had become a major source of visual and spiritual inspiration for many of the most important modern artists in the 20th century, including Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, James Ensor, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Paul Klee.

A number of respected museums in Europe and the United States started to collect and to display traditional art, including Batak art.

Batak art has enjoyed popularity since the mid 19th century when the first objects "souvenirs" collected by travelers were donated to European museums from people like Bernhard Hagen, a German doctor employed by the Rhenish mission, who later founded the ethnological museum in Frankfurt and the Amsterdam Tropical Museum in the l920s. Nelson Rockefeller, the former vice president of the United States, started collecting Asian tribal art including Batak art. He later founded the Museum of Primitive Arts in New York in l957.

The most curious and divisive debate evoked by the new mythology was the question of whether or not objects created by non-Western cultures for magical or ritual purposes, free of all Western concepts of art and aesthetics, could be called art at all.

In Batak Sculpture, Carpenter argues that Batak art is "art" in the highest sense of the word.

"Our emphasis is not on debating its merits but on presenting a collection of Batak sculptural art to the public, allowing them to make up their own minds," writes Carpenter.

The second chapter is prepared by Dr. Achim Sibeth, who has more than 20 years experience as a researcher and author of four books on Batak art; there is no doubt of his preeminence in this field.

He has been the curator of Southeast Asian art in several museums in Germany where he has curated many important exhibitions.

The main text entitled " Batak Art, Culture and Religion," is designed to serve as an introduction and portal rather than an end in itself, Sibeth said.

In the chapter, the author meticulously informs his readers about background history, art, culture and the mythical origins of the Batak people.

"It is impossible to understand the art of any ethnic group solely on the basis of aesthetics alone. One also needs a deeper understanding of the culture that produced it," Sibeth argues. Browsing through this chapter, one will certainly obtain rare information about Batak people, perhaps for the very first time.

In the book, Sibeth categorizes Batak art into two periods: the pre-Christian and the post Christian era.

In the pre-Christian era, "art works" were created mostly by religious priests called Datu. They were the "de facto" artists of Batak society and nearly all their art was commissioned for religious purposes.

The Datu also created magic staffs, pustaha books and medicine horns (naga mosarang). Besides this, Datu priests were also charged with carving different types of statues to represent gods, ancestors and spirits.

The most noteworthy characteristics of ethno-art is that it is always connected with a religious and mystical function of the society that produced it.

The roles played by the Datu within Batak society were very important. They were the men with a deep knowledge of an ancient and esoteric lore that encompassed both white and black magic. They were the only ones able to read and write the holy books or pustaha. In 1910, J.H. Neuman describes a Datu: "He is a man of science, combining in himself all historical, medical, theological and economic knowledge. He is his people's walking encyclopedia."

Sibeth said that most of the knowledge of Batak art is based on work from the early 19th century and 20th century. Scholars and collectors unfortunately failed to accurately document the use, tribe and provenance of every object collected.

A new era began in 1866 with the arrival of the Christian missionary Ludwig Nomensen to the Batak lands. As the old faith waned, the Datu priests found themselves serving an ever shrinking circle of adherents. The cost of patronage and the repression, by missionaries as well as the Dutch colonial administration, of all things associated with their pagan past caused the rapid decline of traditional art. Everything that was not donated or sold to museums and travelers was burnt. Nomensen's successful conversion of many Batak to Christianity resulted in the destruction of traditional religious objects as well as their production. When Batak lands were incorporated into the Dutch East Indies by force, the use of all art, religious objects and weapons were prohibited.

Within two generations, many Batak people had lost their knowledge about their ancient art and culture.

In the 20th century, secular artisans were enlisted by missionaries to carve art objects. Their art was easily recognizable by their overly fanciful and exuberant style, which was eye-catching but soulless.

Sibeth argued that although the Batak and their art had been known in the West for over 150 years, the truth was that any understanding of it, as far as history was concerned, was still in its infancy.

The author says the primary aim of the book is to draw attention to yet more Batak art because a true understanding and definition of Batak art requires a more intensive search and effort to publish every relevant document and artifact possible.

But what is most important about the publication of Batak Sculpture is that younger generations of Batak and Indonesian youth will have an opportunity to learn about their artistic heritage. These are some of the reasons why the book is really worth reading.

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