Product Description

Antique Sumatran Ceramic Medicine Container 3

Material: Ceramic, wood
Style: Batak people, Lake Toba, North Sumatra, Indonesia
Size: Height 14.5 cm
Order Number: MHSASCMC3

The Batak people are Indonesia’s largest ethnic minority group with over 6 million people. They live around Lake Toba in Sumatra. There are 6 ethnic groups with different languages and customs and they all believe they are descended from a common ancestor called Si Raja Batak.

Their religion centred around Batak datu priests, who had magical powers and held totem pole staffs, curved horns holding magical substances, and folding books full of spells. Their chief duty was to protect the individual, family and village from black magic and malevolent forces through rituals, concoctions, statues and amulets.

In 1866 the Lutheran German missionary Ludwig Nommensen converted most of the  Bataks.

This is a Guri Guri (or Perminangken), a ceramic medicine container, with carved wooden stopper in the form of a man, the  primordial ancestor, Si Raja Batak,  riding a mythological animal called a Singha, usually described as similar to a lion, with a human face.  The object is infused with animistic power.

Magician priests kept their magical brews (pupuk) in these medicine containers. They often used hollow bamboo tubes but ceramic  vessels were also used, all of Chinese provenance, covered with a glaze.

Map of Sumatra.

Early – mid 20th century.

 Please ask for the price (or make an offer).