Gee, 12 years ago thread!
Some more information on the Piso n Datu.
The story goes that a Batak king was told by a soothsayer. His wife was about to have twins, male and female. Often twins were serious portents. Could be very good or bad.
The soothsayer told the king that these twins must never meet. At birth they must be separated to opposite ends of the kingdom and never told about each other.
As the twins grew into their teens, they each had a powerful yearning to hunt for a soulmate. Some people say that twins have one common soul.
They were drawn to each other and not knowing they were brother and sister, they spent the night together.
The next morning they began walking and came to a very tall tree. They could not see the top, but wanted to climb it. The boy climbed to the top and disappeared in the upper branches. The girl waited quite a while, called and with no response from the boy that she also climbed and was gone from the villagers below.
Another villager climbed up and also did not come back down. The king heard about this and sent his greatest magicians to climb up and find the people.
What was happening was that the people at the top were frozen in time, becoming part of the Tree (which was part of a Singha Barong).
This Tree was where the Batak staffs and swords like this one came from it.
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