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Batak Christians, Samosir and Lake Toba, Sumatra, Indonesia

Batak Christian church prayer on Sunday..Batak Indigenous Christian people living on Samosir Island and nearby Lake Toba in Indonesia. There are some 6 million Christian Batak in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country of 237 million people, which has more Muslims than any other in the world. Though it has a long history of religious tolerance, a small extremist fringe of Muslims have been more vocal and violent towards Christians in recent years. ..Batak religion is found among the Batak societies around Lake Toba in north Sumatra. It is ethnically diverse, syncretic, liable to change, and linked with village organisations and the monotheistic Indonesian culture. Toba Batak houses are boat-shaped with intricately carved gables and upsweeping roof ridges, and Karo Batak houses rise up in tiers. Both are built on piles and are derived from an ancient Dong-Son model. The gable ends of traditional houses, Rumah Bolon or Jabu, are richly decorated with the cosmic serpent Naga Padoha carved in wood or in mosaic, lizards, double spirals, female breasts, and the head of the singa, a monster with protruding eyes that is part human, part water buffalo, and part crocodile or lizard. The layout of the village symbolises the Batak cosmos. They cultivate irrigated rice and vegetables. Irrigated rice cultivation can support a large population, and the Toba and the Karo live in densely clustered villages, which are limited to around ten homes to save farming land. The kinship system is based on marriage alliances linking lineages of patrilineal clans called marga. In the 1820's Islam came to the southern Angkola and Mandailing homelands, and in the 1850's and 1860's Christianity arrived in the Angkola and Toba region with Dutch missionaries and the German Rheinische Mission Gesellschaft. The first German missionary caused the Dutch to stop Batak communal sacrificial rituals and music, which was a major blow to the traditional religion. Dutch colonial policy favoured Christia

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Batak Christians Sumatra Indonesia, Batak Christians Sumatra Indonesia
Batak Christian church prayer on Sunday..Batak Indigenous Christian people living on Samosir Island and nearby Lake Toba in Indonesia. There are some 6 million Christian Batak in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country of 237 million people, which has more Muslims than any other in the world. Though it has a long history of religious tolerance, a small extremist fringe of Muslims have been more vocal and violent towards Christians in recent years. ..Batak religion is found among the Batak societies around Lake Toba in north Sumatra. It is ethnically diverse, syncretic, liable to change, and linked with village organisations and the monotheistic Indonesian culture. Toba Batak houses are boat-shaped with intricately carved gables and upsweeping roof ridges, and Karo Batak houses rise up in tiers. Both are built on piles and are derived from an ancient Dong-Son model. The gable ends of traditional houses, Rumah Bolon or Jabu, are richly decorated with the cosmic serpent Naga Padoha carved in wood or in mosaic, lizards, double spirals, female breasts, and the head of the singa, a monster with protruding eyes that is part human, part water buffalo, and part crocodile or lizard. The layout of the village symbolises the Batak cosmos. They cultivate irrigated rice and vegetables. Irrigated rice cultivation can support a large population, and the Toba and the Karo live in densely clustered villages, which are limited to around ten homes to save farming land. The kinship system is based on marriage alliances linking lineages of patrilineal clans called marga. In the 1820's Islam came to the southern Angkola and Mandailing homelands, and in the 1850's and 1860's Christianity arrived in the Angkola and Toba region with Dutch missionaries and the German Rheinische Mission Gesellschaft. The first German missionary caused the Dutch to stop Batak communal sacrificial rituals and music, which was a major blow to the traditional religion. Dutch colonial policy favoured Christia
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