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Possible definitions for battak

Batak
Several closely related ethnic groups of central Sumatra, Indonesia. The Batak are descendants of a powerful Proto-Malayan people who until 1825 lived in relative isolation in the highlands surrounding Lake Toba in Sumatra. They have their own written language. In their traditional religion, ancestors, plants, animals, and inanimate objects are considered to possess souls or spirits; today about a third of the 3.1 million Batak adhere to traditional beliefs, while the rest profess Christianity or Islam.


Bantam
Former city and sultanate, Java. It was located at the W end of Java between the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean. In the early 16th cent. it became a powerful Muslim sultanate, which extended its control over parts of Sumatra and Borneo. Invaded by the Dutch, Portuguese, and British, it ultimately recognized Dutch sovereignty in 1684. The city was Java's most important port for the European spice trade until its harbor silted up in the late 18th cent. It suffered severely from the eruption of Krakatau in 1883.


Barzakh
In Islam, the period between the burial of the dead and the final judgment. According to the 14th-cent. Book of the Soul, the Angel of Death appears when a person dies and instructs the soul to depart either to "the wrath of God" or to his mercy. After this accounting the soul is returned to the body in the grave, and the deceased is questioned about Islamic doctrine. At the final judgment, all are resurrected and endowed with physical bodies to suffer or enjoy whatever lies in store for them.


batik
Method of dyeing textiles, principally cottons, in which patterned areas are covered with wax so that they will not receive color. Multicolored effects are achieved by repeating the dyeing process several times, the initial pattern of wax being boiled off and another design applied before redyeing. Wax was applied with bamboo strips in Indonesia, where the technique originated. A small copper pot with a handle and narrow applicator spout for applying the wax came into use in Java by the mid-18th cent.; a wood-block wax applicator was developed in the 19th cent. Dutch traders imported the cloth and the technique to Europe. Today machines for applying wax in traditional Javanese patterns reproduce the same effects as the hand-dyeing process.


battery
of a class of devices, consisting of a group of electric cells, that convert chemical energy into electrical energy. A wet cell (e.g., a car battery) contains free liquid electrolyte; in a dry cell (e.g., a flashlight battery), the electrolyte is held in an absorbent material. Chemicals are arranged so that electrons released from the battery's negative electrode flow (see electric current) through a circuit outside the battery (in the device powered by it) to the positive electrode. The voltage depends on the chemicals used and the number of cells (in series); the current depends on the ...

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