Darangen

Darangen is a Maranao epic poem from the Lake Lanao region of Mindanao, Philippines.

The Darangen epic was also proclaimed as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005 by UNESCO (inscribed in 2008).

Select parts of it are performed by male and female singers during weddings and celebrations (traditionally at night time), usually accompanied by music from kulintang gong ensembles, Tambor drums, and kudyapi stringed instruments.

Its importance was first recognized by Frank Charles Laubach, an American missionary and teacher then living in the Lanao Province.

He first encountered it in February 1930 on a return trip to Lanao by boat after he had attended the Manila Carnival.

He was accompanied by 35 Maranao leaders, two of them sang darangen (epics) of Bantugan for the two-day journey.

Laubach published part of the Darangen in November 1930 in the journal Philippine Public Schools.

This was the first time the oral epics have ever been recorded in print, and it was also the first instance of the Maranao language being published in the Latin script.

[9][11][12] When you pass by the houses of the Maranaws at night, you can hear them singing folk songs or reciting poems that are beautiful and strange.

[2][1][16] The Darangen features several locales, but the principal setting is the grand city of Bembaran (also spelled Bumbaran or Bembran),[note 2] ruled by the main hero of the epic, Prince Bantugan.

In the epic, Bembaran is described as being founded by Diwata Ndaw Gibbon, the grandfather of Prince Bantugan.

Some modern Maranao Islamic religious leaders object to the non-Islamic themes of the Darangen.

Some older Darangen singers have refused to sing these versions as they are deemed inauthentic.