Minangkabau

The Minangkabau are an Austronesian people of the West Sumatran highlands, whose name first appears as Minanga Tamwan in the seventh-century Kedukan Bukit inscription of Srivijaya. Wet-rice farmers in fertile valleys around Mount Marapi, they built their political order in the fourteenth century, when Adityawarman, a Tantric Buddhist prince, founded the royal seat of Pagaruyung around 1347 and ruled until 1375; highland villages kept substantial autonomy.

Their matrilineal society passed land, clan names and horn-roofed houses from mother to daughter. Men led religious and political affairs and traditionally left home on merantau journeys to seek wealth and learning, creating trading communities across Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, notably Negeri Sembilan.

Islam reached the highlands around the sixteenth century and blended with adat custom. The reformist Padri movement's war of 1821 to 1837 convulsed the region before Dutch intervention ended it.