BATTA (pl. BATTAK, not to be confused with the Batak tribe of Palawan in the Philippines), a Proto-Malayan tribe, probably derived from mixed Mongol and Indonesian stock, of North Sumatra, living in settled communities with hereditary chiefs, popular assemblies and written codes of law. The tribe is literate, using a variety of the Devanagari alphabet, and employing hollow tree-trunks at cross-roads as post-boxes. Maize and rice are cul tivated; the latter on terraces which are ploughed with the aid of buffaloes ; two-storied houses are built on piles, livestock being kept below the houses; pottery, weaving, jewellery, iron-work, etc., are practised and gunpowder is manufactured. A trinity like that of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva is worshipped, the tribe having been influenced by Hindu civilization. At the same time cannibalism is practised on prisoners of war, criminals and the aged or infirm, the victim being apparently cut up and eaten alive. The eating of captives and criminals appears to be a method of satisfying revenge and conferring ignominy; in the case of the aged, it appears to be a form of pious interment, as the aged invite their own children to eat them. Though the tribe generally is patriarchal the succession to chieftainship is matrilineal, going to the chief's sister's son. Ancestral images are made of soft stone, and are sometimes reinforced by the soul of a fallen warrior in serted by means of a broth made of parts of his body sealed up in a cavity in the image. Carved sticks containing a soul which hums are used as standards in war and to drive away disease. Cannibalism seems to replace headhunting (q.v.). The teeth are filed and blackened.
See Marsden, History of Sumatra (1783) ; Volz, Archiv fiir Anthro pologie (Braunschweig), xxvi. p. 717 ; 1900. (J. H. H.)