Lake Toba, Sumatra – 1988
In December 1988, after traveling by overland taxi on my way from the city of Medan in North Sumatra to Samosir Island in the highlands three hours south, I found myself in the small lakeside town of Prapat, perched on the edge of the vast and ancient Lake Toba. The small town was quiet, misty, and rather nondescript, though the region was steeped in Batak culture. It was an ideal place for slow wandering and unexpected discoveries.
Looking for a drink, I stepped into a modest wooden sundry shop with a tile floor, not expecting much beyond snacks and trinkets. But as I poked my nose into a room adjacent to the main sales space, I saw tucked onto a high shelf what looked like a jade-coloured ceramic vase positioned between old cans and other garage items. It caught my eye for two reasons. The first was that it seemed aged and unmistakably Chinese. What threw me a bit was that its top appeared to be partially covered in motor oil. When I took hold of the vase and inspected it, I confirmed my impression on both fronts: The lip of the vase had a layer of oil on it, and the rest was dusty and unkempt. Still, I recognized what seemed like a celadon glaze, and there was an unmistakable dragon design under the dust.
I still remember that the young shopkeeper seemed surprised I had an interest in the ‘container,’ and he sold it to me for rupiah that put it in the 10$ range, a veritable steal no matter what the vase's value.
Of course, I wasn’t just intrigued by the piece’s design and possible provenance but also by how such a vase had ended up in the highlands, far from any port or the hands of a calculating antique dealer.
Only later did I learn that such vessels had been highly prized for centuries by the Toba Batak people, who adapted imported ceramics into ritual vessels known as ‘perminangken.’ These sorts of containers were used by the Batak bomoh or datu — ritualistic shaman — to hold magical substances (including bits of human remains), allowing them to communicate with ancestral spirits (Zainuddin, 2012).
The island of Sumatra is one of the largest of Indonesia’s 13,000 islands. It lies directly adjacent to the Melakan Straits, a busy trade route that has been plied by ships sailing between China, Southeast Asia, India and the Arabian peninsula for eons.
The Batak people, many of whom had been converted to Christianity by a German Lutheran missionary in the 19th century when the Dutch were the colonial masters in Sumatra, had long participated in maritime trade networks that brought ceramics from China, Vietnam, and Thailand deep into the Sumatran interior. (I had even celebrated Christmas eve of 1989 in a Batak church in a tiny village on Samosir.)
Possible Age and Origins of the VaseOnce I had the vase back to my home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I learned something about it.
Chinese porcelain vases from the imperial periods were often exported across Southeast Asia via the maritime trade routes, including those connected to the Dutch East India Company and via the Manila Galleon trade.
The piece I’d acquired might have traced its lineage to the late Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) or even earlier, possibly the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), when porcelain production reached its artistic zenith. This information has been confirmed in my later investigations (Canepa, 2020; Savage, 2023). My speculation rested on the quality of the crackle celadon and the other artistry apparent in the piece.
An alternative point of origin could have been the kilns of Chiang Mai, Thailand, or Vietnam, where 20th century entrepreneurs had tapped local craftsmen to satisfy the commercial demands of the growing tourist trade.
For the novice collector hoping for a big find, it was also the vase’s style — featuring an underglaze of light, jade-like green — as well as the worn base showing age and the raised dragon motif that suggested the work could have originated from Jingdezhen, the famed imperial Chinese kiln city. My recent reading also had suggested that such vessels were not just sold in Southeast Asia as decoration; they were symbols of prosperity, protection, and spiritual resonance, often gifted or traded as diplomatic offerings (Savage, 2023).
Some Chinese vases were repurposed locally, fitted by tribespeople with carved wooden stoppers and adapted into ritual use, or as in this one’s case, given a more utilitarian role, like serving as a motor oil container. In more urban areas like Medan or Penang, most vases would have been cherished as heirlooms, and when falling out of favour, they would have been sold to a local merchant who then could have turned them over for a profit to collectors or tourists. For me, finding an elegant Chinese ceramic deep in the rural Sumatran highlands was an unexpected part of my Toba adventure, adding to the mystique of the journey.
Whatever the story might be, now decades later, as this vase sits quietly on a shelf in our Bohol home, I’m reminded of finding it on that misty morning in Prapat.
A final thought: This vase is more than an object—it’s a thread in a long tapestry of memory, trade, and mystery. And like many things I have collected in my travels, it continues to reveal itself over the short time it’s in my possession, endearingly and with grace.
References Canepa, T. (2020). Chinese porcelain: Late Ming (1366–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties. In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology (pp. 2323–2326). Springer. https://link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/978-3-030-30018-0_1336
Savage, G. (2023). Pottery – Qing Dynasty, Ceramics, Porcelain. Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/.../Qing-dynasty-1644-1911-12
Zainuddin, A. (2012). Batak ritual vessels and the adaptation of foreign ceramics. Journal of Southeast Asian Anthropology, 18(2), 45–62.sian Anthropology, 18(2), 45–62.
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