RAAP—045
SAHAN
Naga morsarang, also referred to as sahan, is a ritual vessel used by the Toba Batak of North Sumatra to contain pagar, a supernaturally potent medicine prepared and wielded by a datu, the Batak ritual specialist. Fashioned from the horn of a water buffalo, the naga morsarang serves not merely as a container but as a cosmological apparatus: a receptacle of power, protection, and ancestral memory.
The vessel’s form is saturated with symbolic density. Its exterior is incised with intricate geometric and figurative motifs, while the pointed end is carved into the seated figure of a man—possibly the datu himself, or mythic ancestors invoked in the medicine’s potency. The horn’s mouth is sealed with a sculpted wooden stopper, typically representing a singa, a composite subterranean being associated with protection and transformation. These singa forms are often surmounted by additional figures—human, zoomorphic, or hybrid—which may signify past datu, mythological beings, or spirits aligned with the pagar’s efficacy.
In some cases, the interior cavity of the horn conceals a carved Boraspati ni Tano, the gecko-shaped earth deity central to Batak cosmology. Here, the naga morsarang is not simply a storage device, but a mobile cosmogram—a horned archive of ritual lineage, mythic resonance, and animistic agency, linking the terrestrial to the ancestral through carved form and esoteric function.
The vessel’s form is saturated with symbolic density. Its exterior is incised with intricate geometric and figurative motifs, while the pointed end is carved into the seated figure of a man—possibly the datu himself, or mythic ancestors invoked in the medicine’s potency. The horn’s mouth is sealed with a sculpted wooden stopper, typically representing a singa, a composite subterranean being associated with protection and transformation. These singa forms are often surmounted by additional figures—human, zoomorphic, or hybrid—which may signify past datu, mythological beings, or spirits aligned with the pagar’s efficacy.
In some cases, the interior cavity of the horn conceals a carved Boraspati ni Tano, the gecko-shaped earth deity central to Batak cosmology. Here, the naga morsarang is not simply a storage device, but a mobile cosmogram—a horned archive of ritual lineage, mythic resonance, and animistic agency, linking the terrestrial to the ancestral through carved form and esoteric function.