Karo Batak Erotic

Ask a Karo person who they are and the first answer is usually a clan name. Every Karo belongs to one of five patrilineal clans, the merga silima: Karo-Karo, Ginting, Tarigan, Sembiring and Perangin-angin, each divided into many sub-clans. When two strangers meet, they work out how their clans connect before they decide what to call each other. This is called ertutur, and it matters because the answer decides who owes whom respect. The whole system rests on three relationships, the rakut sitelu. The kalimbubu are the wife-giving side and get deep deference. The senina are your clan peers. The anak beru are the wife-taking side, and they do the practical work at weddings and funerals. No serious ceremony goes ahead unless all three are there.

Their homeland is the Karo plateau of North Sumatra, Indonesia. It's a cool volcanic upland that runs down to the northern tip of Lake Toba, with Mount Sibayak and Mount Sinabung standing over it. The rich soil makes the highlands a food supplier for Medan, and cabbages, potatoes and citrus leave the market towns of Kabanjahe and Berastagi by the truckload. Sinabung woke up in 2010 after about four centuries of quiet and has erupted again and again since, emptying whole villages. Karo also live in the lowlands toward the coast, and Medan itself names a Karo man, Guru Patimpus Sembiring Pelawi, as its founder. A few villages, among them Lingga and Dokan, still have the old siwaluh jabu, big houses built for eight families, with buffalo-horn ornaments on the roof peaks.

Karo is a Batak language, but it belongs to the northern branch along with Pakpak and Alas, not with Toba, the Batak language outsiders hear most. Karo and Toba speakers don't understand each other easily. That gap feeds a live argument over the name. Many Karo reject being filed under Batak, a label they see as shaped by colonial scholars and by Toba dominance, and call themselves simply Karo.

Most Karo today are Protestant, many of them in the Karo Batak Protestant Church (GBKP), and there are large Muslim and Catholic communities. Christianity came late. Dutch missionaries arrived in 1890 but gained few converts for decades. The big wave came after 1965, when Indonesians without a recognized religion risked being suspected of communism. The older faith, now often called Pemena, has not disappeared. Families still hold erpangir ku lau, a ritual washing of the hair in spring water to clear away misfortune, and some still go to a guru, a traditional healer, as well as to the pastor or imam. The yearly kerja tahun harvest festival draws city Karo back to their villages for gendang music and landek dancing.