Part I     Part II     Maps

PART I: A MINANGKABAU VILLAGE

Introduction:
The Minangkabau are a vibrant matrilineal and Islamic people living in West Sumatra. They are one of the largest matrilineal societies in the world, numbering about 4.5 million people. They are considered a devoutly Islamic people who have established a harmonious balance between their Islamic and matrilineal practices. Inheritance of land and houses passes from mothers to daughters so that senior women living in the rural agricultural areas control land, labor and kin. Mothers and their daughters form the core of the big lineage houses, although many daughters today have decided to build their own houses separate from their mother’s houses. Wet rice agriculture is the primary source of income in the fertile valleys of the highlands.

Photos 1-19 were taken in 1989-90 during my fieldwork in the village of Taram, province of Lima Puluh Kota, in the highlands of West Sumatra. Photos by EB except no. 8.

Photos may be used for educational purposes only with attribution. For more information on the Minangkabau, please see my book Webs of Power: Women, Kin and Community in a Sumatran Village.

#1 Anthropologist at work

#2 Minangkabau big house
(rumah gadang)

#3 Newly repainted big house and rice
granary (on right) no longer in use

#4 Highland West Sumatra showing
fertile rice fields and Mt. Singgalang
in background

#5 street corner in Taram

#6 newer model house with attached
garage and apartment on right

#7 young Minangkabau women
attending a high status wedding

#8 An elaborate wedding procession,
bride in center with gold headpiece
and groom to the left with red head
covering (taken in the 1970s)

#9 A Minangkabau bride

#10 Senior women attending a
wedding event

#11 Men participating in a
wedding ceremony

#12 Bride and groom seated together
at the wedding ceremony

#13 Women farmers planting a rice field

#14 Threshing the rice by hand

#15 Rice farmer measuring her harvest

#16 Mother and daughter at the
daughter’s house

#17 Waiting for dusk during the holy
month of Ramadan

#18 mosque in the village of Taram

#19 A big house behind the daughter’s new house

PART II: TRAVELS IN WEST SUMATRA     [top]

Padang, capital city of the province of West Sumatra

#20 Hotel Bumi Minang in Padang, West
Sumatra. Note the use of peaked roofs
on the hotel to signify Minangakbau
identity.

#21 view of the ocean from the hotel

#22 A street in Padang

#23 A day at the beach near Padang

#24 A large mosque near Bukittinggi

#25 The road through Padang Panjang.

#26 A view of rice fields near coastal
West Sumatra

#27 central Jakarta, view from Hotel
Indonesia. Taken while in transit to
West Sumatra, 1996.

Maps     [top]

#1 Indonesia
See also UN Map of Indonesia - pdf

#2 Sumatra
www.govacation-indonesia.com/maps/08sumalg.html

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