Minangkabau Emotion Theory

Abstract

The Minangkabau are an unusually cosmopolitan, eclectic people with a particularly syncretic culture. In part this is the result of the high value that they place on merantau, the temporary out-migration of young men and, increasingly, whole families in search of experience, knowledge, and wealth beyond their homeland. And in part this is the result of the intrusion of other cultures into the animistic heartland over a period of more than a millennium. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam came in as religions but were accompanied by the Indian cultures that brought them. English and especially Dutch colonials did not proselytize, and they did little to expose the Minangkabau to their cultures. Now movies and the television media, most powerfully satellite broadcasts bringing films and sitcoms from the United States and elsewhere, have reached Minangkabau throughout the heartland.