Darangen

The Darangen is the long sung epic of the Maranao people of Lake Lanao. Its name means "that which is narrated by song." It has 17 cycles and about 72,000 lines, and each cycle is a separate story. It is the longest epic known in the country. Singers perform it at weddings and feasts, usually at night, with kulintang gongs, drums and the kudyapi, a stringed instrument. A performance can last a few hours or a full week, and dancers act out single episodes.

The epic also holds Maranao custom law, values and ways of life from the time before the people accepted Islam in the 14th century. The best-known cycle follows the hero Bantugan.

For a long time, only the singers held it. The teacher Frank Laubach first learned of it in 1930, when Maranao leaders sang on a boat trip, and he began to write it down. The National Museum named it a National Cultural Treasure in 2002. UNESCO proclaimed it a masterpiece of oral heritage in 2005.