LES KALASAN BATAK

Description

The Batak are known for some time. Marco Polo refers to these “cannibals” of northern Sumatra, an Indonesian island located on the equator. From the sixteenth or seventeenth century, the Batak procure firearms, raise horses and traded with the Dutch and Portuguese navigators. Made up of several ethnic groups, the Batak still live in the north of the island of Sumatra, in a mountainous region dug steep valleys. One group of Batak, the Kalasan were dead letter for ethnology. Jean Paul Barbier-Muller has made many trips to Sumatra, where he discovered the Kalasan, from the Batak, it has today in this book. The practice Kalasan incineration bones of the dead and the making of equestrian ancestral stone effigies. Deeply imbued with ancestral customs, Kalasan Batak have produced many objects related to their ritual practices and their daily lives punctuated by a complex system of interactions. Attention to detail in the works of small dimensions, the artists demonstrate a keen sense of the ornament when it comes to monumental pieces. Masters in woodworking, combining with entanglement and superposition skill, they are also great stone sculptors. A preliminary study of mythology, religion and the social and political organization is required to present this little known fact that people are Kalasan Batak.