Sungai Penuh

Sungai Penuh lies in the Kerinci highlands of central Sumatra, among valleys enclosed by the Barisan Mountains. The Kerinci people preserved ancestral histories and customary agreements in manuscripts treated as family heirlooms. Their writings used materials including bamboo, buffalo horn and bark, and the local script known as incung. Near Lake Kerinci, the village of Tanjung Tanah preserved an old Malay manuscript dated to the second half of the fourteenth century. It is evidence of a written tradition in the highlands before the spread of Islam. Incung manuscripts preserved genealogies, laments and ritual formulas, keeping the memories and customs of individual communities alongside the wider literary history of Sumatra.