West Sumatra
West Sumatra is a province of Indonesia. It is on the west coast of the island of Sumatra and includes the Mentawai Islands off that coast. West Sumatra borders the Indian Ocean to the west, as well as the provinces of North Sumatra to the north, Riau to the northeast, Jambi to the southeast, and Bengkulu to the south. The province has an area of, or about the same size as Switzerland or Penza Oblast, with a population of 5,534,472 at the 2020 census. The official estimate at mid 2024 was 5,836,160. The province is subdivided into twelve regencies and seven cities. It has relatively more cities than other provinces outside Java, although several of them are relatively low in population compared with cities elsewhere in Indonesia. Padang is the province's capital and largest city.
West Sumatra is home to the Minangkabau people, although the traditional Minangkabau region is actually wider than the province's boundaries, covering up to the western coast of North Sumatra, the southwestern coast of Aceh, the western region of Riau, the western region of Jambi, the northern region of Bengkulu, and Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia. Another native ethnic group is the Mentawai people, who inhabit the western islands of the same name. Islam is a predominant religion in the province, with about 97.4% of the total population.
West Sumatra was the centre of the Pagaruyung Kingdom, founded by Adityawarman in 1347. The first European to come to the region was a French explorer and cartographer named Jean Parmentier who arrived around 1523. The region was later colonised by the Dutch Empire and became a residency named Sumatra's West Coast, whose administrative area included the present-day Kampar Regency in Riau and Kerinci Regency in Jambi. Before becoming a province in 1957, West Sumatra was a part of the province of Central Sumatra, alongside Riau, Jambi, and the Riau Islands.
Etymology
West Sumatra is known by the name Bumi Minangkabau, as it is the home and origin of the Minangkabau people. The Minangkabau name comes from two words namely, Minang and Kabau. The name is associated with a Minangkabau legend known as Tambo. From the Tambo, it is said that at one time there was a foreign kingdom which came from the sea and would conquer what is now West Sumatra. To prevent fighting in the region, the local people propose a cattle race competition with the foreign forces. The foreign forces agreed and sent a large and aggressive cattle to the competition, while the local community sent a cattle calf who was still breastfeeding to the competition. In the competition, the cattle calf who was still breastfeeding thought the large and aggressive cattle was the mother. So the calf immediately ran towards the large and aggressive cattle to find milk until he tore apart the big cattle's stomach. The victory inspired the local people to use the name Minangkabau, which comes from the phrase "Manang kabau". The story of the Tambo is also found in the Hikayat Raja-raja Pasai which also mentions that the victory made the country that was previously named Pariangan changed to the name Minangkabau. Furthermore, the use of the name Minangkabau is also used to refer to a nagari, namely the Nagari Minangkabau, which is located in Sungayang District, Tanah Datar Regency.In the historical record of the Majapahit Empire, Nagarakretagama which dated from 1365, also mentioned the name Minangkabwa as one of the Malay countries that has been conquered by the Majapahit. Likewise in the Ming Chronicles from 1405, there was the royal name of Mi-nang-ge-bu of the six kingdoms who sent messengers facing Yongle Emperor in Nanjing. On the other hand, the name Minang itself has also been mentioned in the Kedukan Bukit inscription dated from 682 which is written in Sanskrit. In the inscription, it was stated that the founder of the Srivijaya Empire named Dapunta Hyang departed from a place called Minānga. Some experts who refer to the source of the inscription suspects that the 4th line words and the 5th line words are actually incorporated, so that they become mināngatāmvan and are translated as the meeting point of twin rivers. The twin river is supposed to refer to the meeting of two sources of the Kampar River, namely the Kampar Kiri River and the Kampar Kanan River. But this hypothesis is denied by the Dutch indologist Johannes Gijsbertus de Casparis, which proves that tāmvan has nothing to do with "meeting point", because these can also be found in other Srivijaya relics.
History
Prehistoric era
From the stories of the tambo passed from generation to generation, the ancestors of the Minangkabau people were the descendants of Iskandar Zulkarnain. This tambo story is more or less comparable to the Malay Annals who also tells how the Minangkabau people sent their representatives to ask Sang Sapurba, one of the descendants of Iskandar Zulkarnain, to become their king.The Minang community is part of the Deutro-Malay community who migrated from Southern China to the island of Sumatra around 2,500–2,000 years ago. It is estimated that this community group entered from the east of the island of Sumatra, along the Kampar River to the highlands called darek which became the home of the Minangkabau people. Some of these darek areas then form a kind of confederation known as luhak, which is then referred to as Luhak Nan Tigo, which consists of Luhak Tanah Data, Luhak Agam, and Luhak Limopuluah Koto. During the era of the Dutch East Indies, the luhak area became a territorial government area called afdeling, headed by a resident who by the Minangkabau community was called the name Tuan Luhak. Initially, The Minangkabau people were included as a sub-group of the Malays, but since the 19th century, the Minangkabau and the Malays began to be seen as distinguished, from the matrilineal culture of the Minangkabau that persisted compared to the patrilineal culture adopted by Malay society in general.
Precolonial era
According to the Minangkabau Tambo, in the period between the 1st century to the 16th century, many small kingdoms stood on what is now West Sumatra. These kingdoms included the Kuntu, Kandis, Siguntur, Pasumayan Koto Batu, Batu Patah, Sungai Pagu, Inderapura, Jambu Lipo, Taraguang, Dusun Tuo, Bungo Setangkai, Talu, Kinali, Parit Batu, Pulau Punjung. These kingdoms were short lived, and are usually under the influence of larger kingdoms, such as Malayu and Pagaruyung.The Malayu Kingdom is estimated to have appeared in the year 645 thought to be located in the upper reaches of the Batang Hari River. Based on the Kedukan Bukit inscription, this kingdom was conquered by the Srivijaya in 682. And then in 1183 it appeared again based on the Grahi inscription in Cambodia, and then the Negarakertagama and Pararaton recorded the existence of the Malay Kingdom which had its capital in Dharmasraya. A military expedition to West Sumatra called the Pamalayu emerged in 1275–1293 under the leadership of Kebo Anabrang of the Singasari Kingdom. After the submission of the kingdom recorded on the Amoghapasa carved on the Padang Roco Inscription, the Pamalayu returned to Java with the daughters of King Dharmasraya, Dara Petak and Dara Jingga. Dara Petak was married to Raden Wijaya, the king of Majapahit, as well as the heir to the Singhasari kingdom, while Dara Jingga was married to Adwayawarman. Jayanagara was born from the marriage of Raden Wijaya and Dara Petak, who would become the second king of Majapahit, while Adityawarman was born from the marriage of Dara Jingga and Adwayawarman; he later became king of the Pagaruyung Kingdom.
Hindu-Buddhist influence in western Sumatra emerged around the 13th century, and began during the Pamalayu expedition by Kertanagara, and later during the reign of Adityawarman and his son Ananggawarman. Adityawarman's kingdom had the strength to dominate the central Sumatra region and its surrounding. This was proven by the title Maharajadiraja which was held by Adityawarman recorded on the back of the Amoghapasa carving, found in the upper reaches of the Batang Hari River. The Batusangkar inscription mentioned Ananggawarman as a yuvaraja performing the Tantris teaching ritual from Buddhism called hevajra which is the ceremony of the transfer of power from Adityawarman to his crown prince, this can be attributed to the Chinese chronicle of 1377 about the San-fo-ts'i messenger to the Emperor of China requesting recognition as ruler of the San-fo-ts'i region. Some inland areas of central Sumatra are still influenced by Buddhism, evident in the Padangroco temple, the Padanglawas temple and Muara Takus temple, the areas that were formerly part of Adityawarman's land. Whereas the recorded devout adherents besides Adityawarman, were Kublai Khan and king Kertanegara of Singhasari.
The spread of Islam after the end of the 14th century had little effect, especially relating to the patrilineal system, and gave a relatively new phenomenon to the people in the interior of Minangkabau. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Suma Oriental, written between 1513 and 1515, recorded from the three Minangkabau kings, only one of whom had been a Muslim convert from 15 years before. The influence of Islam in Pagaruyung developed around the 16th century, namely through travelers and religious teachers who stopped or came from Aceh and Malacca. One of the famous ulama of Aceh, Abd al-Rauf al-Sinkili, was a cleric who was thought to first spread Islam in Pagaruyung. By the 17th century, the Kingdom of Pagaruyung transformed itself into an Islamic sultanate. The first Islamic king in the Minangkabau traditional culture was Sultan Alif.
With the entry of Islam, the customary rules that are contrary to the teachings of Islam began to be replaced with the Islamic-based customary law. There is a famous Minangkabau custom proverb, "Adat basandi syarak, syarak basandi Kitabullah", which means that the Minangkabau adat is based on Islam, while Islam is based on the Qur'an. But in some cases, several systems and methods of adat were still maintained causing the outbreak of civil war known as the Padri War. The war was initially between the ulamas and the Adats, who were the Minangkabau nobility and traditional chiefs; later, the Dutch involved themselves in the war.
Islam also had an influence on Pagaruyung kingdom's government system with the addition of government elements such as Tuan Kadi and several other terms related to Islam. The naming of the Sumpur Kudus District, which contains the words derived from the word Quduus as the seat of Rajo Ibadat and Limo Kaum which contains the word qaum is an influence from Arabic or Islam. In addition, in the adat, the term Imam, Katik, Bila, Malin, which is a substitute for Hindu and Buddhist terms used previously, such as the term Pandito, also appears.