1st graders in Greenacres invited me to come to their class to talk about my hometown West Sumatra, Indonesia. They did some research before my visit, and formulated the questions. When I came, they were ready with their set of questions. The teacher, Karen Pelekis, also prepared the related slides and pictures to support my responses as well. When we looked at the architecture of the traditional houses in West Sumatra, I pointed out that the roof looks like a buffalo horn.
After that, I told them the history behind that tradition, and apparently the kids loved this story. The West Sumatran tribe, called the Minangkabau, is very identical with the symbol of the buffalo horn because there was a time when this region wanted to be conquered by the foreign power of Java. Instead of having a fight or war, the West Sumatran people offered a buffalo fight instead. The buffalo that was chosen was the baby buffalo who was still breast-feeding to his mother. Before the fight someone put a metal with sharp edges on the little buffalo's mouth. The little buffalo thought the big buffalo was his mother, so he went straight to big buffalo's stomach. Finally, this small buffalo won the fight because he cut the stomach of the big buffalo with the sharp metal on his mouth. The big buffalo was defeated, and the West Sumatran people kept their freedom. Since then, people in West Sumatra are called the "Minangkabau" tribe, which means 'the winning buffalo" tribe!
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