The Batak Timur people were ruled by raja (kings), considered to be living gods.

Tichelman (1893–1962), a Dutch researcher, described Simalungun villages as consisting of houses built parallel to rivers from wooden poles and palm leaves.

Girls wishing to avoid attention would give the nut to an old man, who would look after her during market day or would wear a hiou, to suggest unavailability.

A new losung would be cut from a tree trunk, and on an auspicious day decorated with flowers and transported into the village accompanied by music.

The birth of a child was an auspicious occasion, and the dukun (midwife/witch doctor) was appointed to drive off spirits and to cut the umbilical cord with a bamboo knife.

The newborn baby would be swaddled and daubed with rice chewed by the dukun before the mother commencing breastfeeding.

If the date of birth was an auspicious one, this would be done using the mother a new hiou, a ragi idup, or ragi panei [ceremonial cloths], but if the date was a bad one, the baby would be carefully brought by all the women of the village, who would set out to deceive the evil spirits to protect the baby.

In 1904 the Netherlands East Indies government signed surrender agreements with the seven kingdoms of the 'Simeloengoenlanden', to form the administrative unit Simeloengoen en Karolanden.

After World War II, in 1946, a social revolution occurred in East Sumatra which is viewed as a tragedy by the Simalungun people.

Non-native settlers in East Sumatra demanded changes to the monarchy systems of Deli, Karo, and Simalungun, and agitated for unity with the new government which had been proclaimed as the Republic Of Indonesia in August 1945.

Religion of Simalungun People[9] August Theis [id], a German missionary arrived in Sumatra in 1902.

The first translation of The Bible into an indigenous Indonesian language was by Wismar Djaulung Saragih Sumbayak, who had been baptised by Theis in 1910.