Pupuk

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Large pupuk container
A magic priest of the Batak with an overhanging shawl and equipped with a ceremonial staff brings Pupuk to action
A ceramic perminak
A naga barsarang with a singa head

Pupuk is the name for a medicinal magic porridge, which was prepared and stored by the magic priests ( called Guru by the Karo-Batak and: Datu by the Toba-Batak ) of the Batak , a people on the Indonesian island of Sumatra for ritual purposes.

Since in the popular belief of the Batak the spirits of the ancestors can decisively influence the fate of their living relatives, their favor must be asked in recurring ceremonies so that they receive support. As with other Proto-Malay tribes, sacrifices are made and elaborate practices of magic are used. The magic priest fulfilled this important task of maintaining contact with the souls of the deceased. The ceremony included elaborately carved, figure-adorned wands ( Tunggal panaluan ), the magic and oracle book ( Pustaha ) as well as the magical solar calendar ( Porhalaan ), which helped to interpret the complex astrological relationships.

The magical pulp used is said to have been prepared from human flesh (the brain and other body parts of a kidnapped and murdered person) in order to develop the magical powers necessary for the magical priest's conjuration of diseases and fertility rites. Similar to different ethnic groups in Western New Guinea , the Batak knew ritual cannibalism . Like them, they were of a warlike nature and cultivated fighting between the individual villages. They also practiced headhunting .

The Toba -Batak (name derives from the eponymous Lake Toba from) Pupuk was primarily in the hollow horns of water buffaloes , kept that were closed by a wooden peg. Water buffalo horns ( naga barsarang ) were also commonly used by the Mandailing Batak. The horns were closed with all sorts of plugs. Most of them had a mighty Singa head, some also had a whole Singa bust on whose backs - similar to a procession - several people followed a datu .

The Karo Batak, in turn, used the horns of the mountain goat ( buli buli ) as a repository for Pupuk . The stoppers of this variant were mostly decorated with an equestrian figure with lizards or snakes crawling over the back. Occasionally there was a chicken on the rider's head, a symbol of the Batak's most important sacrificial animal for various oracles.

But larger ceramic medicine containers ( perminak ) were also used for storage purposes. The ceramics used came regularly from Chinese production, whereby they were small vases or shoulder pots that were covered with greenish Celadon glaze or had blue under glass painting . In addition, bamboo cans and lead containers were also used for storage.

Further meaning

Pupuk also means in Indonesian usage: manure, fertilizer.

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).
  • Johann Angerler: Bius, Parbaringin and Paniaran. About democracy and religion among the Tobabatak North Sumatra. Dissertation, Leiden Ethnosystems and Development Studies (LEAD) No. 4, Leiden University, 2009, ISBN 978-90-8570-290-0 , PDF download from Leiden University Repository
  • David Gintings: The Society and Culture of the Batak Karo . Medan 1993.
  • Uli Kozok: Batak's lawsuit. Death, wedding and love laments in oral and written tradition . University of Hamburg, 2000 ( full text ; alternative download - dissertation).
  • Helga Petersen, Alexander Krikellis (ed.): Religion and healing arts of the Toba-Batak on Sumatra - handed down by Johannes Winkler (1874-1958) . Rüdiger Köppe-Verlag, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-89645-445-5 .
  • Achim Sibeth, Helga Petersen, Alexander Krikellis, Wilfried Wagner: Religion and healing arts of the Toba-Batak on Sumatra: handed down by Johannes Winkler (1874-1958) . Cologne 2006, ISBN 978-3-89645-445-4 .
  • Johannes Winkler : The Toba-Batak on Sumatra in healthy and sick days - A contribution to the knowledge of the animistic paganism. Belser-Verlag, Stuttgart 1925.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Excerpt from: Roland Dusik, Indonesia
  2. ^ Max Bartels, The medicine of the primitive peoples: Contributions to the prehistory of medicine
  3. ^ Hans-Joachim Kornadt, Education, Aggression and Culture: A Cross-Cultural Study
  4. ↑ Toba-Batak, Sumatra, Indonesia
  5. ^ The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Batak, accessed January 7, 2011
  6. ↑ Otto Karow, Irene Hilgers-Hesse, Indonesian-German dictionary