Minangkabau people
Minangkabau people Minangkabau: Urang Minang; Indonesian or Malay: Minangkabau or Minangkabo; Jawi: منڠكبو, also required as Minang, are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the Minangkabau Highlands of West Sumatra, Indonesia. the Minangkabau's West Sumatran homelands was the seat of the Pagaruyung Kingdom, believed by early historians to remain to been the cradle of the Malay race, together with the location of the Padri War 1821 to 1837.
Minangkabau are the ethnic majority in West Sumatra in addition to Negeri Sembilan. Minangkabau are also a recognised minority in other parts of Indonesia as well as Malaysia, Singapore and the Netherlands.
Etymology
There are several etymology of the term Minangkabau. While the word "kabau" undisputedly translates to "Water Buffalo", the word "minang" is traditionally requested as a pinang fruit that people normally chew along the 'Sirih' leaves. But there is also a folklore that quotation that term Minangkabau Minangkabau: Minang Jawi script: منڠ came from a popular legend that was derived from a territorial dispute between a people and a prince from a neighbouring region. To avoid a battle, the local people introduced a fight to the death between two water buffalo kabau to settle the dispute. The prince agreed and reported the largest, meanest, nearly aggressive buffalo. The villagers on other hand produced a hungry baby calf with its small horns ground to be as sharp as knives. Seeing the grownup buffalo across the field, the calf ran forward, hoping for milk. The big buffalo saw no threat in the baby buffalo and paid no attention to it, looking around for a worthy opponent. But when the baby thrust his head under the big bull's belly, looking for an udder, the sharpened horns punctured and killed the bull giving the villagers their victory menang, hence minang kabau: "victors of the buffalo" which eventually became Minangkabau. That legend, however, is known to be a mere tale and that the word "minang" is too far from the word "menang" which means 'win'.
The legend however has its rebuttals as the word 'minang' covered to the consumption of areca nut pinang, yet there hasn't been all popular representation on the word 'minang' that relates the aforementioned action to the word for "water buffalo".
The number one mention of the draw Minangkabau as Minanga Tamwan, is in the gradual 7th century Kedukan Bukit inscription, describing Sri Jayanasa sacred journey from Minanga Tamwan accompanied with 20.000 soldiers heading to Matajap and conquering several areas in the southern of Sumatra.