This article describes kinship and social relationship characteristics of the Minangkabau people in West Sumatra, Indonesia. The Minangkabau people are famous for their “matrilineal” kinship system. Nevertheless, commonalities between the Minangkabau kinship system and the cognatic Malay kinship system have so far been ignored in anthropological studies on the Minangkabau. Using a theoretical framework developed in kinship studies of the cognatic Malay world, the author analyzes kinship relationship characteristics of the Minangkabau people in the context of the social integration practices that make strangers into kin.
By analyzing the notion of kampuang, a territorial unit at the field site, the author discussed how kampuang members who shared no kinship relationship became “kin” through shared experiences of living together, forgetting genealogies, and helping each other in their everyday life. Through analyses of the preparation prose in a rite of passage among kampuang members, the author also examined the flexibility of kin relationships, as negotiated through consensus formation practices. The analysis at the end of article reveals inclusive and negotiable characteristics of kinship relationships of kampuang among the Minangkabau and in the Malay world.
