Gadang House, Minangkabau West Sumatra

Gadang house is one of typical traditional house for Minangnese, an ethnic group who live around Minangkabau area in West Sumatra Province. Gadang means 'gede' (big). It consists of many rooms for Minangnese family where especially for boys who grow into adolescent shall not be permitted to stay in the house until they get married. The roofs are designed like the horns of buffaloes reminds to its myth when Minangnese bet for Javanese who wanted to expand their kingdom. In the story told that Adityawarman from Java would expand his kingdom in West Sumatra. The Minangnese didn't want their kingdom, Pagaruyung, being colonized by Adityawarman. So, they tried to solve their problem to free their kingdom. They asked to make a buffaloes fight with the Javanese. Adityawarman agreed, with one condition if the Minangnese got defeated, He can take the whole Pagaruyung Kingdom area. Aditya brought out his strong and big female buffalo. It seemed the buffalo was wild enough, went amock in the middle arena. While the Minangnese just brought out a very little buffalo. When the little buffalo entered the arena he thought the big buffalo was his mother. So he run to get closer and got milk from the female buffalo's nipple. Suddenly the big buffalo fell down to the ground, and died. Actually the Minangnese put a pair of sharp metal at the edge of the little buffalo's horns. So when he came closer, the big female buffalo killed. The Minangnese won the contest, they shouted "MINANG" which means "WIN". Since then they named their ethnic group as MINANGKABAU or "The winning buffalo".