Book Reviews - Johann Angerler, Masashi Hirosue, Prophets and followers in Batak millenarian responses to the colonial order; Parmalim, Na Siak Bagi and Parhudamdam, 1890-1930. Ph.D. thesis Australian National University, Canberra, 1988. - J. ter Beek, H. Cordes, Pencak silat; Die Kampfunst der Minangkabau und ihr kulturelles Umfeld. Frankfurt a.M.: Afra Verlag, 1992, 320 pp. - Peter Boomgaard, J.A.A. van Doorn, De laatste eeuw van Indië; Ontwikkeling en ondergang van een koloniaal project. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1994, 370 pp. - J.G. de Casparis, Georges Condominas, Disciplines croisées; Hommage à Bernard Philippe Groslier. Paris: Éditions de lÉcole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1992, 377 pp. - H.J.M. Claessen, Ton Otto, Pacific Islands trajectories; Five personal views, Occasional paper of the Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian University (Canberra), in association with the Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. - Bruce Connell, Cecilia Odé, Experimental studies of Indonesian prosody. Semaian 9. Leiden: Vakgroep Talen en Culturen van Zuidoost-Azië en Oceanië, 1994, 214 pp., Vincent J. van Heuven (eds.) - Aone van Engelenhoven, Donald A. Burquest, Descriptive studies in languages of Maluku. NUSA, Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and other Languages in Indonesia, volume 34. Jakarta: Badan Penyelenggara Seri Nusa, Universitas Katolik Indonesia Atma Jaya, 1992, x + 94 pp., maps., Wyn D. Laidig (eds.) - Ch. F. van Fraassen, Dieter Bartels, In de schaduw van de berg Nunusaku; Een cultuur- historische verhandeling over de bevolking van de Midden-Molukken. Utrecht: Landelijk Steunpunt Edukatie Molukkers, 1994, 476 pp. - C.D. Grijns, Don Kulick, Language shift and cultural reproduction; Socialization, self, and syncretism in a Papua New Guinean village. Cambridge/New York/Victoria: Cambridge University Press, 1992, xvi + 317 pp., maps, figures, photographs, index. - Tim Hoppen, Gerard Termorshuizen, In de binnenland van Java; Vier negentiende-eeuwse reisverhalen. Leiden: KITLV Uitgeverij, 1993, 102 pp. - Niels Mulder, Monique Zaini-Lajoubert, Limage de la femme dans les littératures modernes indonésienne et malaise. Paris: Association Archipel, Cahier dArchipel 24, 1994, ix + 221 pp. - A. Niehof, Rosalia Sciortino, CARE-takers of CURE; A study of health centre nurses in rural Central Java. Amsterdam: Jolly/Het Spinhuis Publishers, 1992, 318 pp. - A.J. Plaisier, B. Plaisier, Over bruggen en grenzen; De communicatie van het evangelie in het Torajagebied (1913-1942). Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 1993, xiv + 701 pp. Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:00:26PM via free access - Anton Ploeg, Nonie Sharp, The Morning Star in Papua Barat, written in association with Markus Wonggor Kaisiëpo. North Carlton, Vic., Australia: Arena Publications, 1994, xx + 140 pp. In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 151 (1995), no: 1, Leiden, 136-161 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:00:26PM via free access Book Reviews Masashi Hirosue, Prophets and followers in Batak millenarian responses to the colonial order; Parmalim, Na Siak Bagi and Parhudamdam, 1890-1930. Ph.D. thesis Australian National University, Canberra, 1988. JOHANN ANGERLER This thesis examines three related millenarian movements among the Toba Batak people of North Sumatra: Parmalim, Na Siak Bagi, and Parhudam- dam. The main purpose of this work is to investigate the role of prophets in millenarian movements against the European colonial order. The author uses the term millenarism to characterize religious movements that expect imminent, total, ultimate, this-worldly, collective salvation. Through a case- study of Batak millenarian movements in the 1890-1930 period the author attempts to show that in order to draw people into millenarian movements, prophetic leaders presented themselves as being linked to the source of the power which ruled their world. Each prophetic leader in turn endeavoured to initiate followers into this source of power. The first section of the book is devoted to an explanation of the historical background. The author tries to describe the Toba Batak mental world and the impact of European influence upon it. He starts by outlining the social system and the religion, laying stress on Toba Batak perceptions of the external world. As f ar as we know the Toba Batak people, who live in the mountainous interior of North Sumatra, were never conquered by an outside power before the arrival of the Dutch and they never developed their own state. Although the Batak political system in pre-colonial times remained fairly egalitarian, the exalted ideas of divine kingship were well known to them. This was probably due to the influence of Hindu culture which began to be feit in the 13th century, as well as to trading contacts with the coastal Malays. Trading and ritual contacts had their influence on Batak cosmology and religion. The author even goes so far as to state that the Toba Batak 'traditional' religion was a product of interaction between the Batak world and the outside world. Though we have to be careful about defining Batak traditional religion in such terms, the author success- fully explains the role of the Batak dynasty of divine priest-kings, Singa- mangaraja, who were believed to possess superhuman powers in their role of mediators between the Batak people and the outside world. They were said to have derived their spiritual power from outside the Batak world and Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:00:26PM via free access Book Reviews 137 according to the author their importance lay in maintaining stable relations between the interior Batak area and the outer world rather than ruling over the Batak. Only in times of war did the Singamangaraja become a unifying symbol of the Toba Batak against their enemy from outside. In a following step the author describes the advance of foreign European powers, namely the Rhenish Missionary Society (after 1861) and the Dutch colonial government (1878), the subsequent military resistance of the Toba Batak led by the Singamangaraja, and their defeats in 1878 and 1883. These military defeats had impressed on the Toba Batak that the power of the Westerners was vastly superior to that of the Singamangaraja. The author argues this induced Toba Batak to doubt the efficacy of the symbols of Batak power and their whole belief system. The Batak began to examine the power of the newcomers very closely and to seek for a new principle in order to understand their changing world. Christianization and colonization started to dissolve the indigenous Toba Batak social order and establish a new one under European power. Some Toba Batak were relatively satisfied with the new order, but even those who were not satisfied were convinced of the superiority of the power of the Westerners. It was in this situation that the first millenarian movements initiated by prophetic leaders emerged. The author supplies a great deal of detailed information about individual leaders, their personal- ities, and social background, their ideas and their ways of attracting followers. He also endeavours to link the development of new beliefs and the course of the movements to political and socio-economic changes which took place at that time. During all stages of millenarian movements the return or the rebirth of the Singamangaraja, whose soul was believed to be immortal, and liberation from foreign oppression were jointly expected. The first stage, which began in 1890, occurred shortly after colonial rule was established. A prophetic leader, Guru Somalaing, a former datu (Batak magician) began to organize the Parmalim movement after he received a revelation from 'Jahoba' (Jehova) in a dream, which is a typical Batak way of receiving divine inspiration. His doctrine consisted basically of traditional Batak ethics. The important point is that he had found a Toba Batak way to gain access to, as the author expresses it, the 'new power' from outside, 'Jahoba'. Later, after the turn of the century, under intensified colonial rule, different types of leaders appeared. These were Toba Batak who at first had involved themselves in a new environment such as missionary education, the Christian church, or jobs in the modern sector of the econ- omy such as colonial public services or plantation companies. Some of them later returned to traditional religion after having found a way to understand it in new terms. The Na Siak Bagi movement, for instance, revived the belief in the Batak creator god 'Mulajadi na bolon', but at the same time wrought quite significant changes in traditional ethics. This vari- ant of the Parmalim movement proved to be the most consistent one. lts Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:00:26PM via free access 138 Book Reviews ideas remain alive today. The Parhudamdam, which finally resorted to violent resistance against the colonial government, was probably the most widespread movement but it was soon suppressed by the Dutch . This book is an historian's view of a subject which is usually the domain of anthropologists. It is undoubtedly an important contribution towards a better understanding of Toba Batak social and religious history, but inevit- ably there are some shortcomings. Far too easily, without expressing any doubt at all, he makes statements about the traditional socio-political order, traditional religion and values, based on colonial accounts. This may some- what distort the reader's understanding of Batak social institutions. I shall explain my criticism by giving one example. The author's main explanation for the success of the prophetic leaders is their ability to gain access to an important source of power. In order to support this theory, he adopts the colonial perception that the sought-after quality, hasangapon, which is translated with 'desire for status and power', should be regarded as the highest traditional Batak value. This perception reflects certain experiences observed by the colonial researchers during periods of intensive social change.