ARCHITECTURE

The House with Horns and a Tail

The island of Sumatra contains some of Indonesia’s richest and most fascinating traditions of vernacular, or domestic, architecture. Even the most casual observer can hardly fail to be impressed by the imposing scale of these buildings, by their ingenious nail-free construction and by the vigor and delicacy of their carved and painted decorations.

            The diversity of traditional house styles found on the island is truly astounding. Around Lake Toba alone, for example, are to be found several distinctive styles belonging to the Toba, Karo and Simalungun Batak peoples-while the houseof the Mandailing Batak to the south are different again. The traditional homes of the Minangkabau of West Sumatra are equally renowned for their beautiful floral carving and elegant, soaring eaves.

            The Gayo people to the north of Lake Toba formerly dwelt in large multifamily houses holding up to 60 people. Each family had an apartment in the center of the house, with a men’s gallery at the front and a women’s gallery at the back. Acehnese houses, found along the island’s north coast, are airy and well-ventilated, with large shuttered windows and elaborate woodcarving.

            But perhaps the most breathtaking Sumatran architecture is found on the island of Nias. Houses stand in rows beside long, stone-paved streets, dominated-as in the famous village of Bawomataluo-by a massive chief’s house resting in vertical and diagonal pillars fashioned from the trunks of giant ironwood trees.

Ancient origins

The observer of this astonishing architectural heritage will ask why so many of these houses-particularly the Batak and the Minangkabau-appear stylistically related, not only to each other but to the houses of other Indonesian peoples, such as the Toraja of Sulawesi. The most notable shared features are the pile foundations, the extended or saddleshaped roof ridge, and decorative, horn shaped gable finials. What ancient historical link explains the origin and spread of this remarkable style?
            The earliest surviving images of pile-built structures with saddle roofs are engraved on bronze drums found in the area of Dongson in what is now northern Vietnam. The culture associated with these drums dates from ca. 500 BC-AD 100, and Dongson drums were traded throughout the archipelago as prestige items. Early theories about "waves" of Dongson migration into Indonesia have now been discounted, however, and it is unlikely that an architectural style could have been spread simply by pictures on drums. Much more probable is that the style was already old when the drums were cast, and that the images are simply its earliest surviving representations.
            House styles ancestral to those you see today in Sumatra were probably developed in ancient times by Austronesians-speaking migrants. The Austronesians-ancestors of most modern-day Indonesians-orginated from a homeland somewhere in southern China and began to migrate into these islands from Taiwan and the Philippines 6,000 years ago. Subsequently, they colonized the islands of the Pacific, and reached as far east Madagascar by AD  400, bringing with them their distinctive building style. Pile buildings with saddle roofs are found as far east as Micronesia, an area settled by Austronesians some time after 2000 BC, and saddle roofs, often of impressive porportions, are a feature of men's houses in New Guinea.
             The survival of this ancient style of architecture seems to rest on its aesthetic or symbolic appeal, rather than a commitment to a particular mode of construction. Minangkabau and Batak houses, for example, both have pointed eaves and extended by quite different building techniques.
             In the Toba Batak house, the living space is essentially created by the roof, which rests on top of very low walls. The rafters are angled outward to produce the projecting gable, and strengthened by means of diagonal  ties. In the Minangkabau house, on the other hand, the living space is formed by the walls, which are much taller in proportion to the roof than in Batak houses. The roof sits on topof this space, supported by a truss and crossbeam structure and built up into tall points by means of many small rafters and battens.

Symbolic Acehnese houses

Acehnese homeoners are women. If they can afford it, the parents provide each of their daughters with a house when she marries-otherwise they simply present their own house to a married daughter and move into the kitchen. During the day the house is the woman's domain. Men spend most of their time in public places, or migrate (merantau) to earn a living through trade, returning home only at long intervals.

             Though subdued in their outward form, Acehnese houses are rich in cosmological and symbolic significance. The front verandah is the most public and formal part. Here men sit. The rear is private, containing the kitchen and the women's entrance. Male and female are simbolically united in the central room, which has the highest floor level, and countains the two main house posts-called "prince" and "princess"-against which the bride and the groom are seated on their wedding day. This is also where the newly-married couple sleeps. At the top of the house, beneath the gable, is a platform for storing family valuables and heirlooms. Outside at floor level runs a skriting-board, often elaborately decorated. The wall separating the verandah from the inner part of the house may also be decorated with intricate woodcarving.

Monumental Nias villages

South Nias has produced some of Indonesia's most astonishing architecture. In the 19th century, the area was ruled by a warlike aristocracy which enriched itself by raiding outlying districts for slaves. The nobles staged elaborate feasts by which they raised their status on the social ladder. The greatest of such feasts entitled a chief to construct a great house (omo sebua).

              A stunning example dating from 1863 survives today in Bawomataluo village in South Nias. It is 22.7 m tall, and is ornamented inside with  carved ebony wall panels depicting ancestral thrones, male and female ornaments, animals and birds, and even a Dutch steamship mounted with cannons.

              South Nias villages are remarkably large, with up to 6,000 inhabitants, as slave-raiding and headhunting made smaller communities too vulnerable. Most villages have a single main street paved with stone, sometimes crossed by a shorter street at the top forming a giant "T" Some settlements are approached by huge flights of stone stairs. The bowed fronts of the houses-reminiscent of Dutch galleons-from a continuous line on both sides. Stone monuments, commemorating past feasts and important funerals, stand before the houses of the nobility.
               A distinctive feature of the houses are the massive ironwood foundation pillars both vertical and diagonal. The diagonal pillars give added stability to the tall house structure in this earthquake-prone region. The flexibility of the house in tremors is enhanced by the fact that the piles rest on top of their foundation stones, a feature also found else where in the archipelago.
               The founding ancestors of South Nias communities originally came from central Nias. Here cam be seen houses of an older and plainer style, without the projecting curved front, as well as different kinds of worked stone monuments. You will need the help of a guide to visit this remote area, and you should check on the weather-rivers become impassable in the rainy season.
               Houses of North Nias are unusual in having an oval plan. They are less monumental  in scale, but share certain features such as the use of diagonal piles, and the cutting of flaps in the roof, which can be propped open to serve as windows. Graves, now Christian in style, continue to be located next to the houses in the traditional manner.

Batak houses

The countryside around lake Toba is dotted with traditional Toba, Karo and Simalungun Batak villages as well as elaborate concerete tombs in the form of houses. The tombs are built with great ceremony and expense to house the remains of the deceased ancestors of particular family. This traditional concern for the dead remains of great importance to the Toba, and has been integrated with Christian parctice. Older sarcophagi of carved stone may also be seen on Samosir Island in Lake Toba.

               Toba house stand on foundations of piles braced with cross-beams, forming a space beneath the house where buffaloes were once stalled. The walls are covered with graceful flowing and spiral decorations-unbroken lines are thought to provide protection to the occupants. Friezes with figures may also be seen, and three-dimensional carved protective 'monsters" are found  at the cornes and top of the facade.

               On the northeastern shore of the lake stands  Pematang Purba, site of the place of the former rajas of the Simalungun Batak, now a museum. The impressively long house has a realisticilly modelled buffalo-head on the front gable-end, and a tail made of the tough black fiber of the sugar-palm at the rear. Inside is the raja's private apartment, each formerly the domain of one of his wives. Nearby is a council house with an elaborately carved central pillar, against which the ruler used to sit while giving judgement.
                The Karo people living on the north of the lake developed an interesting variation on the extended ridge line, with multiple decorative gables topped by realistically-modelled buffalo heads which protected the occupants from harm. Some fine examples survive in villages around Berastagi, such as lingga. Traditionally, houses were occupied by four or eight related families, each with own hearth. A distinctive structure is the geriten or "head-house," to store the skulss of revered ancestors.

The Minangkabau house

The Minangkabau people are well-known for their matrilineal kinship system. This means that houses and rice fields are passed down from mother to daughter. A typical Minangkabau compound will consist of an older, original house surrounded by others that have been added by married sisters and daughters of the parent family.

                 The elegant, sweeping eaves of traditional houses are a common sight amidst the lush green Minangkabau landscape. These pointed eaves, locals say, remind them of the legendary. "vitorious buffalo" (menang kerbau) from  which their name is said to derive. On larger buildings the roof is tiered to form a series of four or six points, often with an additional peak over a porch set at right angles to the main structure. In the past, huge rumah gadang or "great houses" accommodated up to 100 people related to a single female ancestor. Inside was an open gallery with separate sleeping apartments off it. A surviving example-64 m long!-can be visited at the hilltop village of Sulitair, near Lake Singkarak.

                  Minangkabau rice barns and council houses (balairung or balai adat) are also built with pointed eaves, The ancestral village of Pariangan in the Tanahdatar valley, contains some very old examples, as does nearby Pagarruyung-site of the former palace of the Minangkabau rajas. The original palace unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1976, but it has now been rebuilt (on a somewhat enlarged scale) as a museum.