Some Notes on the Kaba Tjindua Mato

An Example of Minangkabau Traditional Literature

Bibliographic Data

ID7526344
AuthorsTaufik Abdullah (0000-0001-9021-7761, Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam Malaysia, corresponding author)
Year1970
Volume9
Pages1-1
Publication date1970-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIndonesia (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0019-7289 • E-ISSN: 2164-8654
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3350620
OpenAlexW2313805313
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited1

In 1923, when the Normal School in Bukittinggi, West Suma tra, the famous Sekolah Radja, celebrated its fiftieth anniver sary, the highlight of the festivities was a performance of the Kaba Tjindua Mato (The Epic of Tjindua Mato).The committee, comprising both local notables and high Dutch officials, hoped to demonstrate that the Sekolah Radja had its own special place in Minangkabau.1This epic was also cited frequently by the Minangkabau pevantau ("expatriate") intellectuals in Java during their 1924 campaign to establish a powerful Minangkabau regional council (Minangkabauraad).Abdul Muis, a leader of the movement and the author of the play, said in his introduction that from this epic, "It can be clearly seen that democracy in Minangkabau has been known since time immemorial."published editions of the Kaba.The oldest edition available to me is van der Toorn's "Tjindur Mato, Minangkabausch-Maleische Legende," in Vevhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetensohappen, XLV (1891).This edition includes only one-third of the whole story.Van der Toorn, who also trans lated this portion into Dutch, said in his introduction that he injcluded only 150 pages out of the approximately 500 pages of th^ original manuscript.He also used four other manuscripts as'1 comparisons.In 1904, a certain Datuk Garang, who came from Tanah Datar (a regency in West Sumatra), published a complete edition of the Kaba in Malaya.This edition is similar to van der ToornTs and is written in Arabic characters (Djawi).These are the oldest editions, although to my knowledge at least seven more published versions of this Kaba exist.4Kaba is derived from an Arabic word, aohbar, which roughly translated means message, or news.In Minangkabau traditional literature, kaba is sometimes mentioned as tjurito or tjavito (Indonesian: tjerita), meaning story.Kaba and tambo (annals, the traditional historiography) are the two most important types of Minangkabau prose literature.Tambo generally treat the gradual development of the Minangkabau World (alam Minangkabau) and its adat.It is in the tambo, for example, that one usually finds the explanation that the kings of Minangkabau were the descend ants of Alexander the Great (Iskandar Zulkarnain), that Minang kabau adat was first formulated by two adat-givers, Datuk 4. Datuk GarangTs edition is based on the manuscript belonging to a tuanku-laras (district chief) family in eastern Minang kabau.On its first page is a stylized flower with the in scription "Sulthan Biladi, Simaharadja Dirad j a ibn Sul than Iskandar Dzulkarnain Chalifatullah fil Alamsjah (Sultan Biladi, King of Kings, the Son of Alexander with Two Horns, Representative of God and the King of the World)."The other two editions are: Datuk Sangguno Diradjo (Bukittinggi, 1923), 2 vols.; Datuk Sango Batuah (Pajakumbuh: Limbago, 1938)--both written in Minangkabau with Arabic characters.A shorter edition in Minangkabau but using Latin script is: St

Asian Studies and History · Cultural and Artistic Studies · Educational Research and Methods · History

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