The Minangkabau people’s name derives from a bloodless clever victory

Evidence

When the two were released into the field, the calf — hungry and seeing the huge buffalo — ran straight to the big animal and butted underneath it, searching for milk to drink, as a calf does with its mother. As the calf nuzzled and pushed up under the great buffalo’s belly, the sharp blades on its head gored and wounded the big bull, which bellowed, panicked, and fled the field. The little calf had ‘won.’ The invaders, astonished and bound by their agreement, withdrew. From the cry of victory — ‘Minang kabau!’ meaning ‘the buffalo wins!’ — the people, the tellers say, took their very name. And the Minangkabau remember it as proof that cleverness and knowing your opponent can defeat brute size and force. — , A Year of World Stories, 13042

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to trickster motifs elsewhere this year (Sang Kancil, Anansi, Br’er Rabbit) and to the value of wit over force.