The highlands of Dairi and Pakpak Bharat west of Lake Toba, whose people are known later as Pakpak.
Benzoin is tapped rather than found: the bark is cut, the resin bleeds and hardens, and it is collected months later, which makes the Dairi villages a steadier supplier than the camphor forests. It goes out through Singkil and Barus. The Singkil river drains the Alas valley and the Dairi highlands to its mouth, and that port is the reason no single harbour on this coast holds the trade outright.
Customs are nineteenth-century ethnography read back; no source of 1200 names a Pakpak chief.
Who holds it
- Title
- Lineage heads of the Pakpak, not named
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
No source names a holder for any date near 1 January 1200.
Overlord
None named.
What it holds
- The benzoin forests
- The Singkil river upstream of its port
Allies and rivals
Singkil and Barus buy from them; the Toba, Karo and the Alas valley people are neighbours.
How things stand that morning
Not recorded. No king, no capital, no writing; villages under their lineage heads.
Wealth
Benzoin tapped from the bark; camphor.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Thin: later ethnography, the campaign board and geography; nothing dated near 1 January 1200 describes the people.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: Drawn on the modern regencies (kabupaten) that match the people's later homeland; the boundaries of 1200 are not known.
Sources and studies
- OMNIA board note (a lead only, checked against the sources above)
- Wikipedia (English): Barus
- Nineteenth and twentieth century ethnography of the Batak, Minangkabau, Rejang and Lampung peoples (Dutch and later writers), read back to 1200 as a caution only, from memory, not rechecked
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.