BATTAS, a people in the northern portion of Sumatra, which regards itself as the oldest in the island, and is distinguished by a pertinacious adherence to ancient customs. The Batta is of middle height, his colour is a light brown, and his hair is black and is worn long. He is dirty in his dress and dwelling, and eats any kind of food that presents itself, though he lives chiefly on rice. A little iron-work, earthenware, and cloth constitute the only industrial products of the tribe. The houses are of wood, roofed with palm-leaf ribs; and the villages are defended by earthen walls and bamboo palisades. The people show a very peaceful disposition, but are valorous when occasion demands. Cannibalism is practised....
Batta or Batak Language.— Up to the publication of Dr H. N. van der Tuuk’s essay Over schrift en uitspraak der Tobasche taal (1855), the first fruits of an eight years’ residence amongst the Battas, our knowledge of the Batak language was confined to lists of words more or less complete, chiefly to be found in Marsden’s Miscellaneoies Works, in Junghuhn’s Battälander, and in the Tijdschrift van het Bataviaasch Genootschap, vol. iii. (1855). By his exhaustive works (Bataksch Leesboek, in 4 vols., 1861-2;. Bataksch-nederduitsch Woordenboek, 1861; Tobasche Sρraak~ kunst, 1864-7) that eminent Dutch savant has made the Batak language the most accessible of the various tongues spoken in Sumatra. According to him, the Batak language is nearest akin to the Old Javanese and Tagal, whereas a recent writer (A. Schreiber, Die Battas in ihrem Verhältnis» zu din Malaien von Sumatra, 1874) has endeavoured to prove its closer affinity with the Malay proper. Like most languages spoken by less civilized tribes, the Batak is poor in general terms, but abounds in terms for special objects. The number of dialects is three, viz., the Toba, the Mandailing, and the Dairi dialects; the first and second have again two subdivisions each. The Battas further possess six peculiar or recondite modes of speech, such as the kata andung, or language of the wakes, and the kata poda, or the soothsayer’s language. A fair acquaintance with reading and writing is very general among them. Their alphabet is said, with the Rejang and Lampong alphabets, to be of Indian origin. The language is written on bark or bamboo staves from bottom to top, the lines being arranged from left to right. The Batak literature consists chiefly in books on witchcraft, in stories, riddles, incantations, <kc., and is mostly in prose, occasionally varied by verse. See on it the fourth volume of the Batak Leesboek, or Reader, above mentioned.
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