Lake Toba, Sumatra – 1988
In December 1988, after traveling by overland taxi on my way from the city of Medan to Samosir Island in the highlands of North Sumatra, 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 nondescipt, 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 sundry shop, 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 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 was 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.
Of course, I wasn’t just intrigued by the piece’s design and possible age but also by how such a vase had ended up in the highlands, far from any port or the hands of an 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 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 were 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 Toba’s Samosir Island.)
Possible Age and Origins of the VaseOnce I had the vase back to my home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I learned something about it. The piece could trace 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). Chinese porcelain vases from these time 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 vase’s style — featuring an underglaze of light green —suggests it could have originated from Jingdezhen, the famed imperial Chinese kiln city. My recent reading also suggests that such vessels were not just decorative; 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 in the late 20th century, given more utilitarian roles, such as serving as motor oil containers. In more urban areas like Medan or Penang, they would have been simply cherished as heirlooms, and when falling out of favour, been sold to local merchants. For me finding an elegant Chinese ceramic deep in the rural Sumatran highlands added to its mystique.
Now, decades later, as this vase sits quietly on a shelf in our Bohol home, I’m reminded of that misty morning in Prapat.
The vase is more than an object—it’s a thread in a long tapestry of memory, trade, and belief. And like many things I have collected in my travels, it continues to reveal its story, slowly 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.
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