Introduction / R.S. Kipp -- Emergent vs. invariant models / E.M. Bruner -- Political oratory in a modernizing Southern Batak homeland / S.R. Siregar -- Hierarchy and alliance in two Sumatran societies / R.P. Lando and L.L. Thomas -- Simalungun Batak economy and society / W. Clauss -- The village as a category of Pakpak Batak descent / R.G. Coleman -- A political system of highland Sumatra, or, Rethinking Edmund Leach / R.S. Kipp -- Some notes on administering justice in Karoland, North Sumatra, Indonesia / H. Slaats and M.K. Portier -- Fictive kinship and changing ethnicity among Karo and Toba migrants / R.D. Kipp.