Re: Montanian

H.S. Teoh wrote:
>There's a culture in southeast asia (in the Malaysia/Indonesia area) that
>is matriarchical(sp?). My memory fails me as to the name of that
>tribe/culture, but I do know that they have the females own property and
>get inheritance (instead of the males), and the husbands take the wives'
>name instead of vice versa, etc., as opposed to (only) the males receiving
>inheritance, which is common in other asian cultures.
>
>This may no longer be true today, though. They probably no longer keep
>their distinctive culture.

You may be thinking of the Minang Kabau, of southern Sumatra (Palembang
area), and some I think in Malaysia too.  They're a quite numerous group;
the language is very close to Malay.  The society is basically matrilineal,
in that the women own the property and inherit, as you say; I don't know
about the marriage customs.  The interesting thing is that they were fairly
early converts to Islam, which seems to have produced a number of cultural
problems.  Under the Dutch, bright young MK men tended to leave the homeland
and adopt Malay; many gained places in the native bureaucracy and
intelligentsia-- and early on became part of  the nucleus of the
independence movement.

I am not sure, either, whether or how well the original culture has
withstood the last 50 years, though my impression is that it has.