Priest's Book

Made with a hard wooden cover and soft bark pages, folded like an accordion, pustaha contain ritual knowledge compiled and written by Batak priests known as datu. This knowledge includes prayers, rituals, recipes, prescriptions, laws and more that are necessary to the work of the priest. The book is written in a ritual script called poda that only Batak priests are able to read. In addition to the written script, it is also common for such books to contain drawings typically in black or red pigment.

1987, Gift to the Indiana University Art Museum from Thomas D. Slater, Fishers, IN

Unidentified date, Thomas D. Slater acquires, Fishers, IN [1]

Unidentified dates, unidentified owner(s), possibly in Sumatra, Indonesia and/or other places [2]

Notes
[1] We do not know when or under what circumstances Thomas D. Slater acquired this work, as Slater did not share any further provenance information with the museum.

[2] We do not yet know how many changes in ownership transpired between when this artwork was initially made and owned to when Thomas D. Slater acquired it. This absence of documentation on ownership history within the cultures where the artworks were made and used is part of a larger history of collecting practices that did not record prior ownership among communities of origin.

Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.

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Cite this page
"Priest's Book | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2025. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=87.11.5