Using previously glossed over letters about the first theatrical performance of the Minangkabau kaba (literary tale) “Sabai nan Aluih” at a Padang women’s association event, I analyse how writers considered the play as a tool to promote Minang oral literary culture and contribute to the formation of an ideal Indonesian woman. Published as a play by foundation co-editor of the periodical Asjraq (1925–28), M. Rasjid Manggis, this kaba centres on the titular Sabai nan Aluih who rejects the marriage proposal of the much older Raja nan Panjang. He subsequently bludgeons her father to death. Sabai avenges her father by killing Raja nan Panjang. Sarikat Kaoem Iboe Soematra incorporated Sabai into their associational identity as a ‘warrior’ embodying gendered ideals of loyalty, power, and action. I argue that these multiple pedagogic performances constituted a means for individuals, and their communities, to create locally-centred gendered identities and notions of justice.