Batak Toba
People Sumatera Utara
Maintained
Other and rejected name forms
A rejected form remains searchable so that older sources stay findable, but it is never used in the prose of an entry.
A Batak Toba-speaking population around Lake Toba and Samosir island, organised by patrilineal marga, the obligation framework of dalihan na tolu, and a Protestant church which since the late nineteenth century has been its principal social institution.
Marga and dalihan na tolu
A marga is a patrilineal name borne for life which determines whom one may marry. Dalihan na tolu — the three hearthstones — names three positions every person must occupy at every customary occasion: hula-hula, the wife-giving side, who are honoured; dongan tubu, clan-mates, who are treated as equals; and boru, the wife-receiving side, who serve. The three rotate: one family is hula-hula to one party and boru to another.
Sources 1
Ulos
The woven ulos cloth moves along the same framework: hula-hula give ulos, boru return money and meat. Different ulos belong to birth, marriage and death, and giving the wrong one is an error everyone present recognises.