Finding a History for the Bataks of North Sumatra

What is it about?

History as a modern discipline has overwhelmingly concentrated on the story of kings and states as told in their abundant documentation. Stateless societies are much harder to document and have thereby often been rendered 'a people without history'. The Batak peoples of North Sumatra (Indonesia) are an important case, having been incorporated into the colonial state only around 1900. This paper seeks to combine both external and internal evidence to suggest that Batak societies did indeed undergo major historical changes, including the choice of statelessness itself in the 16th-17th centuries, which need to be explored.

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Why is it important?

The Bataks of North Sumatra are an important example of how the history of stateless societies has been ignored.