Aside known for their delicious cuisine (trust me, they are never the second best), Minangkabau ethnic group is also known as the world’s largest matrilineal society, representing one of the last remaining matrilineal societies in the world. Minangkabau people or Minang is an ethnic group, they are the original inhabitants of the Minangkabau Highlands of West Sumatra Indonesia. Legend said that in the mid 12th century, there was once a king, named Maharajo Dirajo, who established the Koto Batu Kingdom, died, leaving his family behind, which consisted of his wives (three wives) and three sons. After the death of the king, Puti Indo Jalito, the first wife of Maharajo Dirajo, took charge of the children and also the kingdom which leads into the dawn of matrilineal society there. Although they are strongly Islamic, they still practice their ethnic traditions which emerged from ancient animist and Hindu-Buddhist beliefs before the arrival of Islam in the island Sumatra.
Minang women takes of control the land inheritance, both property and land are inherited down the female’s line, from mother to her daughter, while the men take roles in political and religious leadership but some women are also play an important roles in this area. In marriage, instead the wife who moved in to the husband’s household, in Minang unlike the other ethnic’s traditions which mostly are patriarchal and tend to exchange the woman between families, it’s men who obliged to move in to their wife’s household, bringing his own clothes and stuffs he’ll need, it’s different right?
Raising their children is a tad bit different here in Minangkabau, not only the parents whom guide, raise and teach their children, the uncle from the mother’s side also take responsibility in raising them, to look after them until they grow as an fully adult, but that does not stop there! the uncle (or so they call him mamak) is responsible to organise his nephews/nieces’ wedding ceremony with the help from the mother’s side fam and he do the all match-making stuff. The man who are interested in taking the hand of one the fam’s daughter got to tell Mamak and he’ll discussed the proposal with the fam. Men of Minang are told to travel abroad and try to make their own fortunes, mostly in business (trading and stuffs, Minang are absolutely amazing in this area of practice) and those who does not travel, stay home and be mommy’s boy are often seen as a weak human being.
Decision-making process in Minang should be by consensus, almost all decisions require consensus between both men and women. Neither male or female rule is possible because of their beliefs that both sexes are equal, they are the two sides of the same coin, they value their roles even though it seems that men tends to have a bigger power in public, which also leads to Islam’s rules that
“Men will be the leaders but women are not under the pressure of men,”
They are still and not less important than men, because Minang women have an advantageous role like they are the one who get the family’s scared property (they call it Rumah Gadang or big house which is where all of the family members stay) and the land also, this known as the high inheritance while men only receive the low inheritance (which is what the pop passes to his children outside of his professional income/earnings).
Neither sex rules, because in Minangkabau males and females complement each other. It seems that the key between both sexes is that they share the power and authority but not in the ways that are too obvious, of course.
And the last but not least, The tribe was formed according to the mother’s line, it’s the women who are the one that carry the lineage, in the other words a child who was born with a background with Minangkabau parents will follow his or her mother’s tribe. A male in Minangkabau cannot bequeath to his son of his tribe, so if there’s no girl in a tribe then it can be said that the tribe extinct. Fascinating isn’t it? well that my friends, is only one of the thousands uniqueness of Indonesia.
