Hard Bargaining in Sumatra: Western Travelers and Toba Bataks
in the Marketplace of Souvenirs, by Andrew Causey
Hard Bargaining in Sumatra is an artfully written and penetrating
examination of the interactions between Western travelers
and Toba Batak wood carvers in the souvenir marketplaces of
Samosir Island which sits in the middle of Lake Toba, one
of the largest and deepest high mountain lakes in the world.
Inhabiting the lake and its environs, the Toba Batak are the
best-known of the five Batak tribes inhabiting northern Sumatra.
One million strong, they are considered the most aggressive,
direct, and flamboyant of all the Batak subgroups, and proud
of it. Eighty percent are Christian, but their religion is
mixed strongly with ancestor worship.
The original Batak tribe, the Toba Batak have the purest lineages
and speak the most uncorrupted dialect. They can trace their
family lines back 10 generations, to a time when any stranger
who stared upon their land was killed and devoured. This fate
probably befell the first missionaries to the area; the last
recorded instance of cannibalism took place in 1906. They
are remarkable in the anthropological literature for the distinction
that they were “literate cannibals” with their
own writing system.
Toba Batak art is an expression of their religious ideas,
deeply concerned with magic. Whatever the art form, the Bataks
incorporated a multitude of magic signs and fertility symbols.
Batak woodcarving, richly ornamented with mosaics, serpents,
double spirals, lizards, life-giving female breasts, and elongated
dark-colored monsters’ heads (singa) with bulging eyes,
is especially sophisticated. Figureheads of carved hornbills
adorn boats and sorcerer’s wooden staffs feature weird
figures climbing up the whole length, showing a mixture of
Dongson and even Indian influences.
Toba Batak wood carvings are described in tourist guidebooks
and by Toba Batak vendors alike as “traditional”
and “antique,” despite many recent changes and
new inventions in form. Reproductions of dubious quality are
made to look old and are now turned out strictly for tourist
consumption, but truly vintage artifacts can cost up to several
million rupiah in the tourist shops of Medan and Prapat.
As just one example of how the trade is viewed differently
by visitors and vendors, Bataks understand “antique”
to mean “things in the old style,” whereas Westerners
use the word to describe genuinely old things.
The author spent fifteen months in the mid-1990s on Samosir
doing his field work. Causey’s assertions are made all
the more compelling and authentic because he personally studied
the skills and techniques of the wood carvers. We see first-hand
the dynamic between the teacher/subject and student/researcher
develop. The larger context is the relationship between tourists
and vacation spot.
Hard Bargaining in Sumatra is a very personal, sensitive and
captivating study of the souvenir trade between locals and
tourists in northern Sumatra, chronicling the cultural impact
of tourism on this indigenous host community. You’ll
never again look at a Toba Batak carving in the same light
after reading this book.
Hard Bargaining in Sumatra: Western Travelers and Toba Bataks
in the Marketplace of Souvenirs by Andrew Causey, University
of Hawaii Press 2003, ISBN 0824827473, soft cover 368 pages,
illustrations, maps, notes, glossary, bibliography, index.
Available for Rp250,000 at Periplus Bookshops in the Bali
Galleria, the Matahari in Kuta, the Bintang supermarket in
Legian, Warung Made in Seminyak, Ngurah Rai Airport (both
international and domestic terminals), in Gramedia Bookstores,
and in the Ary’s, Ganesha and Periplus bookshops of
Ubud.
For comments and suggestions, please write : pakbill2003@yahoo.com
Copyright@2006 PakBill
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