Marga (Batak)
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As Marga (Daftar marga Batak) , the large family associations called indigenous ethnic group of Toba- Batak in the northern mountains of the Indonesian island of Sumatra . The Marga are primarily religious cult and sacrificial communities . Each Marga is organized according to its father line ( patrilinear ) and is subdivided into individual clans and these further into individual lineages . Marriage is only possible outside of one's own margin ( exogamous ).
In the Karo- Batak ethnic group , the family associations are called Merga and consist of five major groups: the Karo-Karo, Perangin-Angin, Ginting, Sembiring and the Tarigan .
Outlines of the Marga
Breakdown
The Marga are the largest family associations of the Toba-Batak. They are subdivided into Saompu ("from an ancestor"), large family groups with the descendants of a common ancestor who lived 10 to 15 generations ago . One level below that, family associations, also called Saompu , are made up of the descendants of an ancestor who lived 6 to 10 generations ago. They live in neighboring villages and meet on important occasions. On the 3rd sub-level there are Saompu , which refer to a common ancestor 4 to 5 generations ago and mostly live together in a village. They comprise several Ripe , single nuclear families made up of parents with their children. They form households and economic units, but do not appear as social units.
Today the Toba use the Marga name as a separate family name. As an extension of the name, Marga raja ( Altinidsch raja "king, prince") means that a family has political rule within the association .
- marriage
Sexual intercourse and marriages between members of the same upper Marga group are prohibited, as are members of the respective subordinate Saompu groups. After marriage, the wife continues to belong to her own Saompu and is not counted as that of her husband. The cross cousin (daughter of uncle , brother of mother), who comes from another clan according to the different family relationships of the parents ( exogamous marriage rule ) , is preferred to be married . This is seen as a legitimate way out of the family-ancestral relationship problem. Today this marriage rule, which used to be strictly observed, is sometimes broken.
Overdivision
Despite the breakdown of individual Batak tribes into interconnected clans and lineages (family lines) to the beginning of all Marga a common ancestor are (Si Raja Batak) , dating back to the super Marga and origin Marga . The best known and most extensive are the family trees of the Toba Batak. They have clear ideas about the family ties of all Batak clans.
- Chiefs
The village head and elder of a Marga have the task of ideally preventing friction and disputes within the village community, otherwise mediating them. Measures for this are based on the unwritten customary law of the so-called Adat .
Cultic festivals
The Marga are cult and sacrificial communities, which is why they have a variety of religious functions. In memory of the mythical ancestor (Sombaon) , the Marga celebrates the Hordja festival. The respective community of the relatives present represents the entire Marga. Most of the members of the Marga are also members of a regional association, understood as a territorial unit of villages. In the sense of this affiliation, Marga clans can also overlap. At least it is difficult to differentiate the ancestral ( genealogical ) Marga from the local village unit.
An important festival of the communities is the Bius festival, a ceremony of purification ( catharsis ) and renewal (repetition of the creation process). A sacrificial wale is raised and water buffalo are sacrificed . The festival serves as thanksgiving , but also to prevent bad harvests, disease epidemics or other social inconveniences. These festivals are important beyond the Marga, as they represent the different ethnic groups of the Batak in terms of ancestry , marriage relationship and home village / landscape .
literature
- Achim Sibeth: Living with your ancestors: Batak, people in Indonesia. Edition Mayer, Stuttgart / London 1990 (published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Linden Museum in Stuttgart).
- Waldemar Stöhr: The ethnic unit: religion and society. In: The same: The old Indonesian religions (= Bertold Spuler (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Orientalistik . Department 3, Volume 2, Section 2). Brill, Leiden / Cologne 1976, ISBN 90-04-04766-2 , pp. 18–32 ( page views in the Google book search).
Individual evidence
- ^ Waldemar Stöhr: The ethnic unit: religion and society. In: Same: The old Indonesian religions. Brill, Leiden / Köln 1976, pp. 18–32, here pp. 18–19 ( page views in the Google book search).
- ^ Waldemar Stöhr: The ethnic unit: religion and society. In: Same: The old Indonesian religions. Brill, Leiden / Köln 1976, pp. 18–32, here p. 24 ff. ( Page views in the Google book search).
- ^ Waldemar Stöhr: The ethnic unit: religion and society. In: Same: The old Indonesian religions. Brill, Leiden / Köln 1976, pp. 18–32, here p. 24 ( side view in the Google book search).
- ^ Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg : The Batak: Farmers on Sumatra. 1980, accessed June 22, 2014.
- ^ Waldemar Stöhr: The ethnic unit: religion and society. In: Same: The old Indonesian religions. Brill, Leiden / Cologne 1976, pp. 18–32, here pp. 25–26 ( page views in the Google book search).