Thousands of people flocked to Indonesia's western coast to watch a procession of mythological statues decorated with various colorful knick-knacks before being thrown into the sea.

This procession, which has existed for centuries, was born on a day of mourning for the Shiite community.

Two statues about 15 meters high, resembling horses with wings, are known by the people of Pariaman City, West Sumatra, as "TABUIK".

The statue was paraded by dozens of men from the center of Pariaman City to the beach before finally being thrown into the sea for the ornaments to be fought over by the public.

On the way to the beach, it is not uncommon for the statues to be shaken, rotated, and knocked against each other to make the people watching get even more excited.

If you know the history, this festival began to commemorate the death of Husein Bin Ali, who was the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad SAW, during the Battle of Karbala on 10 Muharram.

This tradition is widely known by people from other regions of West Sumatra, so when the tradition is held, it always attracts thousands of visitors.

Tabuik is taken from Arabic, namely tabut, which means wooden chest. Pariaman people pronounce it as Tabuik this is due to the influence of the Minang dialect, where consonants ending in "t" are pronounced as "ik". For example, fear of becoming a tachyc.

Based on this legend, every year the people of Pariaman make a copy of a buraq carrying an ark on its back in the shape of a tens of meters tower, which is known as Tabuik.

Tabuik literally means a coffin or coffin decorated with flowers and other colorful decorations and other accessories depicting the buraq (a horse animal with a human head).

In history, it is said that Tabuik came from Indians who joined the Thamil Islamic troops in Bengkulu in 1826, during the reign of Thomas Stamford Raffles from the British Empire.

After the London agreement on March 17, 1829, Bengkulu was controlled by the Dutch, while the British controlled Singapore. This condition caused the Tamil Islamic troops in Bengkulu to spread, including to Pariaman.

Since then, Tabuik has existed and become part of the culture of the Pariaman people. Symbolically, Tabuik depicts the greatness of Allah SWT, who carried Husein's body into the sky with a buraq because he died horribly in the Karbala War.

Since 1982, Tabuik has been a supporting culture for tourism in Pariaman.