Profile of Origin Tribe of Samosir Island

In the year between 1965 and 1970 the roads around Samosir Island were still uncovered. Only certain vehicles and drivers could pass those roads and the journey took 8 hours. A variety of conditions has to be passed over from a steep road to a zig zag path. This island is surrounded by a lake. However, there is a bridge connecting islands and a mountain surrounding a little town namely Pangururan.

You may pass over the bridge to an area namely Sidikalang, which is famous with coffee plantation, which has better quality than coffee Robusta. You may pass roads with many turning points. During your journey you may view various trees that make you surprise and adore the unexploited nature. This place will remind you to a long time ago fabulous story when human lived on Stone Age. Sometimes you may take breath due to incredible nature during your journey. You will really be disappointed if you forget to bring a camera. After passing over a forest you may come to a hilly place with many fruit gardens. Here you may feel very cool until you forget to broadcast the beauty nature to all your friends. Long time ago the Samosir Island was occupied by the animism Batak race. This race preferred this land due to security and free from external disturbance. When they would contact to outsiders they would ride horses. They are coming from a group of old Malay, who like doing adventure. When they wanted to interact with the world outside they would present their culture for an entertainment. In Indonesia, this race is famous with their songs. They express their heart feeling by melancholic melodious songs as well as joyful songs. This is the cause that Batak songs are favorite songs in world wide. Their living style are very unique and different from many other races in Indonesia as well as in your country. They only have a king when they want to conduct their custom procession. The concept of their leadership includes three dimensions, those are to respect older people, to appreciate friends, and to promote and encourage young people. Their leadership is so democratic; therefore there is no power conflict. If you follow this pattern of leadership, you will be soon popular. In social culture structure they have family linking. The family name is the ancestor name that has been used until today. You may imagine, from generations to generations they use origin signs from their ancestors. A unique feature is found that they are not allowed to marry each other. There is a rule for a marriage and it has been a culture among them since long time ago. There are many family names, that every family knows who may marry them or not, and also how to propose a lady. In the past time, if someone married to a lady from the same family name, he would be accused of doing an illegal relationship and he would be punished by tightening his neck with a rope hanging by a stone and pushing him down to a lake. If a foreigner plans to marry a lady from that race, he has to undertake the custom procession to get a family name by spending a lot of money for the formal event usually equivalent to a cow rate. Furthermore, the proposal ceremony is conducted automatically follow the custom of family tradition. In the period of Dutch colonial occupation, this area was undefeated due to smart strategic defend and attack, and also possessing high spiritual power as well as their togetherness to challenge against the Dutch using their custom leadership.
The powerful men at that time demonstrated their good performance in horse riding using a double-eyed knife. Sisinga Mangaraja was the famous hero at that time. Their grandchildren like doing adventure to get knowledge outside and rarely come back. They have already been around the world. The typical behavior of this race is the simplicity of doing interaction with other people, behaves fair and sincere in working together as well as dislikes doing harmful actions to others. When they feel lonely in overseas they sing several melodious songs to overcome missing feeling to their home town.