The Inculturation of Tortor Sombah in Batak Simalungun Culture

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-424-2_7How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Inculturation; Tortor Sombah; The Gospel; The Batak Simalungun; Naibata

Abstract

This research examines Tortor Sombah’s Inculcation in Simalungun Batak Culture. The Tortor Sombah dance art culture is still being preserved by the Simalungun people today, including by the church. Tortor Sombah was initially only used to congratulate the King when Simalungun adhered to the monarchical system. The use of Tortor Sombah is growing daily, starting with the traditional rituals, significant celebrations, and welcoming of kings, notable visitors, influential people, and essential visitors in Simalungun culture. The Simalungun people experienced a profound change in many areas of life after the Bible arrived in Simalungun, including Tortor Sombah. Totor sombah is a sign of appreciation and worship to Naibata (God), particularly in the Pesta olop-olop. The research methodology employed in this research is inculturation contextual theology. The research methodology begins with data collection and ends with data reduction and presentation. Content analysis is the method of analysis used. All data are displayed descriptively. The results of this study indicate that Totor Sombah’s Inculturation may have occurred due to the Gospel becoming embodied in Tortor Sombah. Tortor Sombah is only used to worship God in the context of worship and is also an expression of respect to humans.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Tolop Oloan Marbun
AU  - Sarmauli Sarmauli
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/06/16
TI  - The Inculturation of Tortor Sombah in Batak Simalungun Culture
BT  - Proceedings of The 3rd International Conference on Christian and Inter-Religious Studies (ICC-IRS 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 53
EP  - 63
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-424-2_7
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-424-2_7
ID  - Marbun2025
ER  -