320. Minangkabau Model Cart & Buffalo, Antique, Sumatra

Brass Model of a Minangkabau Cart and Buffalo

This cart and buffalo are of cast brass with remnants of red staining. The cart has wheels that turn and a roof cast with typically Minangkabau scrolling vegetal motifs.

The Minangkabau are a Muslim people who inhabit West Sumatra. Unusually, they are matrilineal – inheritance is through the oldest daughter, and they are matrilocal – sons-in-law reside with their wife in the wife’s parent’s home. Significant numbers of descendants of Mingankabau settlers also live in Malaysia’s Negri Sembilan state where they continue with their traditional culture and still speak Minangkabau dialect.

A similar cast brass model of a Minangkabau cart and buffalo is in the National Museum of Singapore Collection (catalogue no.B0451) and illustrated in Singh, B., Malay Brassware, National Museum of Singapore, 1985, p. 32, and on the cover.