Deceptive Appearances: Environment, Demography, and Agricultural Change

The hamlet cluster on which this study is based is called Huta Ginjang, 'top village.' It lies some 3 degrees north of the Equator, perched about two miles up the north side of Pusuk Buhit, 'Mount Navel,' a dormant volcano that connects Samosir 'island' (actually a vast peninsula in Lake Toba) to the body of Sumatra (see Map 2). The nearly 600 inhabitants of the village share a single spring for all water they use domestically.

Generally the climate of Sumatra is characterized as being of "equatorial monsoon" type. Samosir has the most pronounced dry season of all Sumatra, since it lies in a highland crater, from which the surrounding landmass slopes down to the encircling seas (see Map 1). In the dry season, the winds blow in, often with incredible and repeated gusts, from the southwest and from the west. They may start as early as April and continue well into October. Beginning in July, the wind often blows constantly, day and night, at some 50 miles an hour, with gusts up to 80 miles an hour.

At times one gazes out over the parched expanse of the northern half of Samosir 'island' and imagines that if only its clayey whiteness were a dark tree-green, the misty clouds that hover around the lake at the edges of the crater would somehow yield a bounteous wet rain rather than the mistlike drizzle that never penetrates the ground more than an eighth of an inch. After a three-week blow, the wind lets up and gives way to scorching hot, clear days with only a rare puff of cloud in sight. Then, just as it seems that enough of these rare puffs are appearing to give rise to a real thunderhead or two, the wind starts up again, and what had seemed to be clouds reveal themselves to have been apparitions dissipating into the mist-bearing collar that sits, apparently immobile, hugging the upper edges of the lake crater in uncanny defiance of the wind. The sky turns white, and another three-week blow begins. So it goes, alternately, from May through September, primarily between June and August.

The seasonal oscillation of rainfall recorded between 1922 and 1928 by the Dutch administrators at Pangururan, the town at the point where the mountain and island are joined, can be seen in Table 1.1. Whereas in the dry season, during the stretches of overcast gale winds, the sun often does not break through the cloud cover, much of the "rainy season" is actually sunny for most of the morning and afternoon, except for an hour's downpour toward the evening. Parts of the rainy season are, then, much hotter than parts of the dry season.

From its vantage point halfway up the mountain, Huta Ginjang overlooks the north end of Samosir and, to the west, the raised, stream-fed bowl of Sagala Valley (invisible from the lake or from Samosir Peninsula), that has one bottleneck egress lying between the mountain and the lake-crater wall that encircles both. In 1933, J. C. Vergouwen referred to this area as the "out-of-the-way mountain territory of Sagala." Numerous other isolated, well-watered valleys nestle in the crevices of the vast crater enclosing the lake. What makes for Sagala's apparent isolation is that it is not a thoroughfare and is divided from the lake by a long-solidified shoulder of the mountain. To the south, it is cut off from its proper extension, Limbong Valley, by another shoulder of Pusuk Buhit. (Two of the grandsons of the first man, Si Raja Batak, were named Limbong Mulana and Sagala Raja.)

Hundreds of tourists each year pass within 5 kilometers of the village on "round-the-island" diesel steamer tours and do not see it. Its existence is signaled by what appears to be a tiny clump of trees in the vast, seemingly barren and uninhabitable expanse of brush and savannah that cloaks the mountain. A keen eye may note the darker brown of cultivated areas of level stone terraces, an occasional puff of smoke from some distant shoulder (the sign of a raging savannah fire), or the deeper green that sets off ripening rice in scattered, minimally terraced patches high on the mountain. But even the ubiquitous terraces of the mountain's middle and lower reaches are normally hidden from sight by brush and Imperata grass cover, at least until a boat reaches the canal at Pangururan and passes through the land bridge that connects the mountain to the Samosir peninsula. There, the terraces covering the lower half (as high as the eye can see) are in almost constant use, and at seasons when most are planted, the mountainside resembles a wall of stone.

Water and Settlement Patterns

Sianjurmula-mula, the purported site of the original Batak hamlet and home of the first man, Si Raja Batak, is at the southern end of Sagala Valley, at the foot of the spur connecting the mountain to the high plateau that extends west from the lip of the crater. It was on our way to visit it that my wife, Hedy, and I happened on the village of Huta Ginjang.

Ultimately, the existence of this village may be attributed to the fortuitous occurrence of a spring on the northwest flank of the mountain. Water is carried to the houses throughout the year by women and girls, who imitate the carrying of buckets from the time they learn to walk. Villagers bathe, wash clothes, and get water for household use at a divided bathing place with three pipes below a small holding tank. Two pipes go into the women's compartment and one into the men's, since some women and girls need water for domestic purposes while others are bathing or washing clothes. No water is piped for household use to any of the hamlets because many are afraid that the flow would not be sufficient to meet the needs of washing, etc., and they therefore refuse to invest in pipe. In the dry season the downstream bed of the brook is parched for months, because all the "excess" water is diverted for irrigation.

The area on the southern flank...