Pagaruyung a reminder of Minangkabau's glorious past

By Simon Marcus Gower

BATUSANGKAR, West Sumatra (JP): Visitors to West Sumatra will become familiar with the traditional architecture of the Minangkabau home, updated for modern times.

A main house on wooden stilts will consistently be seen accompanied by two smaller rice barns. The main house is a basic single hall-like space with small bedrooms lined up against one wall of this space. The main house and the two barns each have the steeply sloping gabled roofs that end in needlepoint pinnacles that point to the sky mimicking the horns of the buffalo. (Many such buffalo work the abundance of rice fields in this region)

These houses, although very traditional in their design, do not always exhibit the use of traditional construction methods or materials. Regrettably the predominant material used in their construction seems to be corrugated metal sheeting that quickly rusts to leave both walls and roofs alike an unattractive series of shades of brown. Traditionally the walls of these houses would have been covered with richly carved and painted wooden panels, each being a veritable work of art in itself.

Today such colorfully and traditionally constructed houses can still be seen but they are rare. To see an impressive, large- scale example of this architecture an appropriate destination is Pagaruyung, which is situated near to the small West Sumatran town of Batusangkar.

A good way to travel from Batusangkar to Pagaruyung is by motorbike because this allows you to take the smaller roads that wind their way through the rising and falling land that undulates through much of this upland plateau. As you ride between rice fields and groves of palm trees houses are rarely seen and thus to finally get to Pagaruyung and see the large example of Minangkabau architecture that stands there is even more surprising.

This large house rises up on a prominent high point of land and, by comparison to the low-lying land around it and absence of other buildings in the vicinity, it seems like a monumental construction, almost having the scale of some European cathedral. The house is monumental not only in scale but also purpose for it is effectively a monument to the Minangkabau kingdom whose sultans' palace once stood on this site.

The building is a reconstruction of that earlier palace; guides will tell you how the retreating Dutch army destroyed the original palace during World War II and how this present building was completed in the mid-1970s. They will also take pleasure in pointing out that the large and numerous columns that support the structure stand at an angle (i.e. away from being perfectly 90 degrees vertical) because the traditional builders determined that this was the best way to limit damage from earthquakes.

What the guides will neglect to tell you is that the columns are not solid wood, as they appear to be. On closer inspection it can be seen that the columns are wooden clad. The actual structural column beneath the cladding is concrete and thus modern technology is as much in evidence to defend against earthquakes, as is traditional practice.

Pagaruyung does, however, illustrate how Minangkabau culture places women in important, if not the primary, positions in family life. In this palatial house the best bedrooms are those for the female members of the family and it is the females of the Minang tradition that lead households. Minangkabau women are the holders of titles, family names, wealth and property, all of these being passed down through the female lines.

Minang men may be entrusted to maintain the property but they have no rights to make demands of the women other than expecting them to be faithful in marriage. The women, meantime, may make demands of the men and if misfortune should fall upon the marriage it is the man who must leave, while the woman retains property rights.

A local young woman recounted how she was expected to marry a local young man. First her mother ordered that she marry the boy (for at the age of 17 that is what he was). But the girl, at the time only 15, refused, saying that she was neither old enough nor sufficiently attracted to the boy to marry him. Her mother, frustrated, called upon the girl's grandmother to convince the teenager that the arrangement was for the best but the girl remained adamant and today, three years on, she remains unmarried. Here then three generations of Minangkabau women were making decisions and not once was any mention made of consultation with the male members of the family.

It is, perhaps, these prominent and headstrong women that we must thank for the delights of Minangkabau food which is known throughout Indonesia as makanan Padang after the provincial capital. Throughout Sumatra, across Java and into Bali, there are numerous restaurants specializing in such food. Thus one may delight in having waiters bring the various food forms to your table, carrying them in dishes precariously balanced up their arms, often eight or nine dishes at a time.

The various culinary delights derived from the Minangkabau region may be widely enjoyed but, as a local cook put it, there is nothing better than experiencing the real and original cuisine in its original setting.

The Minangkabau kingdom covered much of central Sumatra at the height of its influence in the 14th century and 15th century. Today, however, the extent of that long-lost kingdom's influence is difficult to trace. Pagaruyung may be upheld as the center of the kingdom but the impressive building that stands there is by no means a working palace. It is a museum that represents the Minangkabau kingdom and its culture.

The spread of the Muslim faith through the archipelago and the violence of the Padri Wars in Sumatra in the first half of the 19th century ended the line of prominent Minangkabau families. What is left of the kingdom and the culture is, then, an exotic mix of the unusual and distinguished, (such as the decorative architecture), and the familiar, (such as the widespread and popular food from the region). Whether unusual or familiar there is no denying that the Minangkabau lands are an intriguing and colorful addition to the remarkable patchwork of peoples and cultures that make up the Indonesian archipelago.