Lime squeezer

This wooden implement is a ritual lime squeezer that depicts a standing human figure holding a vessel with both hands. The face is intricately carved with fine, angular features. The wood is highly polished, perhaps from the repeated turning required to extract lime juice. A ritual specialist, called datu by the Toba Batak, used lime in several ceremonial contexts. For example, the juice was mixed with water and used in the ceremonial cleansing of a horse about to be consecrated to one of the three principal deities, Batara Guru, Soripada, and Mangalabulan. The citrus juice was also added to various mixtures such as magic potions and gunpowder to improve their efficacy. And in rituals designed to foretell the future, lime segments would be combined with chicken eggs.


The Toba Batak, one of six groups among the Batak peoples of northern Sumatra, live in the mountainous highlands surrounding Lake Toba (the birthplace of the Batak, according to oral histories and myths). The Batak maintained trade relations with their Malay neighbors living on the coast but otherwise remained relatively isolated until the 18th and 19th centuries when Dutch and British traders, along with German missionaries, established operations in Sumatra. Although nearly all Batak today are Christian or Muslim, they formerly recognized diverse supernatural beings, including deities, ancestors, and malevolent spirits. The primary religious figures in Batak society were male ritual specialists, called datu by the Toba Batak, who acted as intermediaries between the human and spiritual worlds. Much of Toba Batak sacred art centered on the creation and adornment of objects that would be used by the datu for divination, curing ceremonies, malevolent magic, and other rituals. Among the most important were ceremonial staffs, books of ritual knowledge, and a variety of containers used to hold magical substances.



References


Capistrano-Baker, Florina H. Art of Island Southeast Asia. The Fred and Rita Richman Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994, pp. 69, fig. 33


Sibeth, Achim. The Batak. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991