Piso Sanalenggam Sword
- Dated: 19th century
- Culture: Pakpak Batak People, North Sumatra, Indonesia
- Measurements: length 64cm
According to Sibeth & Carpenter (2007) the piso sanalenggam swords were made by datu priests from the Pakpak/Dairi region and used in the preparation of medicine and magical substances. The example here is the best example of a Batak piso sanalenggam sword that we have seen. It is certainly superior to any of the examples published in the literature.
The hilt is large and particularly superbly rendered. The scabbard is wonderfully patterned and coloured. The hilt, of buffalo horn, is in the form of a delicately carved kneeling stately male ancestor figure. The figure is bent forwards with his eyes downcast. His face is particularly naturalistically rendered. His hands are arranged with the fingers pointing downwards but with the thumbs pointing up, a position often found in Batak sculpture (Sibeth & Carpenter, 2007, p. 248).
The figure’s headdress or crown is carved with swirling leafy motifs. It flares at the top and curls up at the back of the neck. The waist cloth is carved to suggest that it stretches tightly across the figure’s body and is carved with a cross-hatched checkered pattern. The hilt is particularly finely; indeed we have been unable to find an example of an ancestor hilt with finer carving.
The red pigment used to colour such scabbards was obtained from red earth (batu hula) which was pounded fine with lime and mixed with resin as a binding medium. Some sources suggest that the blood of killed enemies also was added to this mixture. Black was obtained from charcoal which was similarly mixed (Sibeth, 1991). The blade is plain, broad, and the edge gently undulates.
Sidenotes:
- The Batak are an ethnic group whose ancestral land is in northern Sumatra. In the past, they practiced ritual cannibalism. Today they number around four million and form one of Indonesia’s larger ethnic minorities.
- The spectacular volcanic Lake Toba (Danau Toba) in north Sumatra is the ancestral home to the largest Batak group, the Toba Batak. The lake is the largest freshwater lake in Indonesia.
- Examples of piso sanalenggam swords have been published in ter Keurs (2008, p. 88), Van Zonneveld (2001, p. 109), Sibeth (2000. p. 61), and Sibeth (1991, p. 163.)