Transcript from the book:houses and house furniture: the villages of the toba battaks are fortified by a thrown up bank or terre-plein all round, thickly planted with thorny bamboos; one or more apertures about 1 meter high and 60 centimeters wide, are the sole gates. The houses of the poorer inhabitants are low huts with mud walls and thatch roofs, they are in the out-of-the-way corners; flanking the principal street are the houses of the rich and notables (fig. 4); these are much larger, built on piles from 80 centim. To 2 meters high. In front is a sort of veranda, shut off from the entrance which is reached by a ladder and which is always beneath; the flooring and walls are of stout planks, the latter often elaborately ornamented with carvings and paintings (fig. 7). The roof of ijuk (arenga-fibres), is high and steep, with projecting gables at each end: on the peaked gable in front is the skull of a buffalo or an imitation of its head in ijuk with real horns attached. But the characteristic adornment of the gable front of the houses of the better kind is a most elaborate concern called giorognom-giorognom (see fig. 5), of which i give here a drawing as more eloquent than the best worded description. Besides, on each side of the facade, is a huge symbolic figure-head, elaborately carved and painted; it has a sort of proboscis and a generally elephantine aspect, it is called signa (see fig. 6), and may be a relic of ganesa, for the battaks show many signs of remote hindoo influence. The area beneath the house is used as stables , and divided by partitions. The inside of the house has no divisions, at one end is the hearth, and on the walls around , from the rafters above or in the corners , are arranged and stowed away the household utensils; the valuables being secured in one or two big boxes with a lid let in grooves. Date: 1893.
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