Inquiry of a Chinese trader about the Batak People in North Sumatra, 1 March 1701
FROM : DAILY JOURNALS OF BATAVIA CASTLE, 1 MARCH 1701 [BEGINNING WITH FOL. 113-]
Translation
Today the Chinese man, who arrived here the day before yesterday from the West Coast of Sumatra and had spent a long time there in the Angkola Mountains, was questioned about the verbal report he had already made about this. And it was written down at the Secretariat of the Governor-General, as can be read in the following enclosures.
In the completed interrogation of the Chinese ’t Singko, who arrived here [in Batavia] from Baros via Padang with the challop of the Chinese Thieko, he [’t Singko] has the following to say.
Ten years ago he sailed as a passenger on the ship of the Chinese nachoda Khintsijko from here to Malacca and left from there to [voyage] to Pande, which is situated in the vicinity of Dilly. Whence, after the nachoda had negotiated his business with the Malay inhabitants and departed [to Batavia] without taking the interrogatee with him. The latter was resolved to remain there and earn his livelihood in some small business.
After he had purchased some salt in Pande, to supplement the few copper basins and some fine blue cotton cloth (baftas) which he had brought with him, taking a few coolie porters he travelled to Bata, about ten or eleven days journey from Baros. There he sold or exchanged these [wares] with the local inhabitants for benzoin and wax, with which he returned to Pande, where he traded these for salt.
For a period of ten years he earned his living by trading back and forth in the villages in this fashion. As he did so he gradually became better acquainted with the inhabitants of these villages and after five years he chose a local Bata woman whom he married after her parents accepted the sum of 50 rix-dollars for her as is the custom of the country. He has also begot a small daughter now four years old.
Even though the inhabitants of Panda and Batak have shown this Chinese great consideration, he views them as virtually savage people who dwell in the mountains and forests, however they are very consistent and [act like] humanbeings in the cultivation of their fields. And they are also civil and courteous towards strangers, whom they do not meet very often in their country, especially not Europeans, who have not been seen there for many years. They do not associate with the Malays in the lowlands as they are not Muslims.
Because they think that pork is the greatest delicacy, they have plenty of rice which they plant every year at the right season. This is plentifully sufficient to satisfy all those - and they are many - who dwell in this country,. [They] also have plenty of fields of grain crops and various other vegetables, which they also cultivate to produce their food.
They also eat human flesh but only that of wrongdoers or criminals and once such a one has been bound hand and foot, he is carved up into small pieces while still alive by two to three hundred of these forest people using small knives, and is eaten raw and still bleeding with some long pepper or small [?] and a pinch of salt. The hands and the feet as well as the heart and the brains are kept as delicacies for the rulers, and the head with the ears, nose and tongue and all the rest pertaining to it, is for the notables, who likewise consume it raw with salt and small [?].
They dress in the same fashion as the Malays, both men and women wearing a sarung with a long jacket, but with the distinction that the maidens and unmarried women are allowed to don a jacket. When they marry, they are expected to doff it and walk around with a bare torso.
Apart from the usual foodstuffs, these regions also produce wax and benzoin, which they exchange with their neighbours for salt, which cannot be procured among the Bata and therefore is regarded by them as money, likewise among the inhabitants of Bata themselves in the market.
The Chinese says that nothing has been heard about gold or other minerals in or around these regions. Possibly such are present, but the ignorance or stupidity of the inhabitants blind them to this.
Eventually the interrogatee decided to leave there and journey in this direction and he announced this [decision] to the rajas, who provided him generously with rice and various fruits and vegetables to consume as supplies during his journey. Thus supplied, he and his wife and child undertook the journey overland to Baros and, having reached there after a period of ten days, he boarded the ship of the Chinese Thieko which was lying in the roads of Baros, on which he with said wife and child arrived here via Padang on the 27th of last month planning like others of his nation to earn his living from agriculture or in some other manner.