sumatra



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		SUMATRA Sumatra, once the center of the world's spice trade and home to the Sumatran tiger, is one of those delightful places in Indonesia not yet numbed to tourism. Parts of the island outside of the main tourist areas of Bukittingi and the Bukit Lawang orangutan reserve are hard to get to and even harder to get around in. Foreign faces are still a matter for curiosity, inviting stares as well as welcomes. Since westerners are still a novelty there, Sumatra offers some special opportunities to travellers. Outside of Bukittingi, Lisa and a vanful of Westerners pulled over to watch what was obviously a ceremonial procession; soon, they were guests at a Minangkabau wedding. The mother of the bride coaxed them into a tidy, tight little home dripping with gold and fabric decorations, and a group of curious revelers gathered to watch as they were practically force-fed from the elaborate and spicy Padang-style banquet on the floor in front of a gold-bedecked bride. The Minangkabau are the major ethnic group in Sumatra's central highlands, the land around Bukittingi. They are a matrilineal people, with all major property held by women and passed from mother to daughter. They claim descent from Yunnan Hill tribes in China, and those aesthetic references are evident in their costumes, decorations and house designs.

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