Travels in the East Indian archipelago

by Albert S. Bickmore

When we returned to the Batta village, the rajah seemed greatly relieved, for he declared that he believed he should never see us again. Such are the superstitious terrors that constantly torture the imaginations of these ignorant people. On our return, a heavy rain set in, which completely drenched us and swelled the brook. Again and again the strong current came near sweeping us off the slippery rocks, while the lightning flashed in broad sheets and the thunders echoed and reëchoed in the deep ravine. The Malays who formed my guard then began to discuss in an undertone, without thinking that I overheard them, whether the Evil Spirit would not, after all, bring some dreadful misfortune on the white gentleman for daring to visit his abode. One suggested that the Battas might yet capture him on one of his dangerous excursions. Another said he would probably have an attack of fever (which I confess I myself considered probable), for after such exposure to the hot sun, and such a drenching, any man, even a native, is likely to find a keen burning in his veins the next morning. The rajah, however, replied to these unfavorable suggestions, that Tuan Allah would take pity on him, and not allow even the rain to harm him, for he was a good man, and it could not be very wicked in any one simply to go and see where the Evil Spirit lived. My feet and ankles had become so bruised from treading on the rough rocks in the bed of the torrent, and so cut from walking through the tall grass, that as soon as I reached my room I went to bed, and did not rise for thirty hours; but the rajah’s predictions proved true, and I escaped without even an attack of fever.

A few days afterward, a rajah came from his village on the coast near Barus, or Barros, a small port about thirty miles toward Achin. He said that some neighboring Battas had taken two of his men, and had already eaten one of them, and were keeping the other to eat him also, and that he came to Siboga to ask the Resident that soldiers be sent to compel those cannibals to deliver up their intended victim. Such a request, of course, it was not possible for the Resident to grant, however much he might wish to do so, for the whole country is extremely mountainous, and covered with a dense, impenetrable forest; and the moment these Battas have finished their attack, they instantly retreat into the interior without allowing the Dutch the possibility of punishing them, except by subjugating the entire country, and that would be a work of the greatest difficulty, and one that would require much time, and money, and bring no adequate recompense. It is such a common thing for the foreigners here at Siboga to hear that one or more natives have been eaten in the neighboring mountains, that no one thinks of speaking of it as any thing strange or even incredible. In the Silindong valley two missionaries have been living for some time, trying to educate and convert the Battas. I met one of them with his bride at the governor’s residence when I arrived at Padang. The lady had arrived but a short time before from Holland, and they were just then starting on their wedding tour to their future residence among the cannibals. The other missionary is now at this village, and I have just been present at his wedding. His wife is a young lady of not more than seventeen summers, and what is stranger than all in both of these matches is, that neither of these gentlemen had seen his betrothed before she arrived, except in a miniature, which of course might or might not be a good likeness. It may relieve the curious for me to state that all parties are entirely satisfied.

This missionary tells me that he knew of a Batta who had been guilty of stealing an article of only very little value according to their ideas of wealth, yet he was seized, his arms extended at full length and fastened to a bamboo, a sharpened prop placed under his chin, so that he could not move his head, and in this condition he was bound fast to a tree. The knife was then handed to the native who had lost the article, and he was ordered to step forward and cut out of the living man what piece he preferred. This he did promptly; the rajah took the second choice, and then the people finished the cold-blooded butchery, and thus their victim died. This revolting feast, he assures me, took place but a short distance from the village where he resides. How any lady can think of going to live among such dangers I cannot conceive; but Madame Pfeiffer, according to her account, went considerably farther than the place where these missionaries reside, and even reached the northern end of the Silindong valley; but I am assured here, and she states nearly the same thing in her book, that the Battas only permitted her to return because they regarded her as a witch. Three years after she performed that journey, three French priests were butchered and devoured, before they had come near to the farthest place she had reached alone. No Malay would have ever escaped who had gone so far into their country.

A NATIVE OF THE ISLAND OF NIAS.

The parts that are esteemed the greatest delicacies are the palms of the hands, and, after them, the eyes. As soon as a piece is cut out it is dipped, still warm and steaming, in sambal, a common condiment, composed of red or Chili peppers and a few grains of coarse salt, ground up between two flat stones. Formerly it appears to have been the custom to broil the human flesh, for Mr. Marsden states that, in December, 1780, a native of Nias, who stabbed a Batta at Batang Taroh, the river I crossed on the suspension bridge, was seized at six one morning, and, without any judicial process, was tied to a stake, cut in pieces with the utmost eagerness while yet alive, and eaten upon the spot, partly broiled, but mostly raw.

It is probably on account of the difficulty of penetrating their inland and elevated country, and from the natural ferocity of these people, that the Mohammedan priests of the neighboring country of Menangkabau have failed to induce the Battas to adopt their religion. The first white men who went up far into the interior appear to have been Mr. Ward and Mr. Burton, two English missionaries, about the year 1820.

They started from this place, and reached the Silindong valley. Their object was to reach Lake Toba, but they were only obliged to return on account of their becoming seriously ill. The kindly manner in which they were treated is very different from the reception all other white men have received at the hands of these cannibals.

It appears that the next white men who went up into the interior of this country were two American missionaries, Henry Lyman and Samuel Munson, graduates of Amherst College, and natives of Massachusetts. In 1835 they sailed from Batavia to Padang, and thence came directly up the coast to the Batu Islands, Pulo Nias, and this bay. From this village they went up into the interior toward Lake Toba, and when about fifty miles distant they were attacked and killed by the Battas.