Pelebegu

The Pelebegu religion is the traditional faith of the Batak peoples of North Sumatra, among them the Toba and Mandailing. The Toba believed that the first Batak descended from Si Raja Batak, whose family settled on Pusuk Buhit, a volcano by Lake Toba.

Its creator is Mula Jadi Na Bolon, ‘the beginning of becoming’, who lives in an upper world of seven levels. He received no sacrifices. Ritual centered instead on the tondi, the life-soul, and on the begu, the soul of the dead, which stayed near the village and had to be pacified with food and prayers.

Priests called datu healed the sick and foretold the future from the pustaha, a book of bark and wood. During the Minangkabau Padri wars of 1803—1837, the Mandailing Batak of the south were converted to Islam.