Parmalim

The term Parmalim or malim describes the followers of the Malim, or Batak religion. Batak is a collective term used to identify a number of closely related Austronesian ethnic groups predominantly found in North Sumatra, Indonesia, who speak Batak languages. Linguistic and archaeological evidence indicates that Austronesian speakers first reached Sumatra from Taiwan and the Philippines through Borneo or Java about 2,500 years ago. The Batak are probably descendants of these settlers. The Bataks practiced a syncretic religion of Shaivism, Buddhism and local culture for thousands of years. The traditional occupation of the Batak was agriculture, hunting and farming. The great lake of Toba provided vast opportunity for freshwater aquaculture since ancient times. Interior rural Batak communities relied heavily on rice farming, horticulture and other plant and commercial crops, and to some extent, acquiring forest products, such as hard wood, plant resin, and wild animals. Before they became subjects of the colonial Dutch East Indies government, the Batak had a reputation for being fierce warriors. Today the Batak are mostly Christian with a Muslim minority. A significant minority of Batak people do not adhere to either Christianity or Islam, however, but follow Malim, a relatively recent variation on traditional religious practices. Ritual cannibalism was well documented among pre-colonial Batak people, being performed in order to strengthen the eater's tendi, or life-soul. In particular, the blood, heart, palms and soles of the feet were seen as rich in tendi. Family lineage (tarombo) is very important for the Batak. Those who do not know their lineage are considered strays (nalilu). Information on the traditional forms of Batak religion is derived mainly from the writings of German and Dutch missionaries who became increasingly concerned with Batak beliefs towards the end of the nineteenth century. Malim primordal cosmology begins with six deities. In the beginning. sky god Mula Jadi Na Bolon and serpent-dragon sea god Naga Padoha stood alone. The three sons of Mula Jadi, Batara Guru, Mangalabulan, and Soripada, were hatched from eggs laid by a hen fertilized by their father. Mula Jadi then begets three daughters whom he gives as wives for his three sons. Humanity is the result of the union of these three couples. Another god, Asiasi, remains enigma but there is some evidence that this god served as a balance and unifying force for the other gods. These primordial do not receive any sacrificial offerings from the faithful and no places of sacrifice are built for them. They are merely called on in prayers for help and assistance. The origin of the earth and its inhabitants is connected mainly with the daughter of Batara Guru, Sideak Parujar, who is the actual creator godess. In the religious world of the Toba and Karo Batak the gods and the creation of mankind are far less significant than the complex concepts connected with the tendi or tondi (life-soul) and the begu (death-soul). Tendi can be separated from their owners through inattentiveness or as the result of black magic. The final loss of the tendi inevitably results in death. At the end of the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century the anti-colonial Parmalim movement, which originated in Toba lands, spread to other areas of the Batak lands. The Malim religion shares a few attributes with Islam, including a prohibition on the consumption of pork and of blood and the practice of wearing turbans, but is predominately based on traditional Batak beleifs. Modern Parmalim trace their heritage to Sisingamangaraja XII, a Batak leader in the struggle against the Dutch, whose spirit lives on in his successors.