🕯️ Traditions Maranao Culture Preserves an Epic Through Oral Performance

[Beatriz9]

The Darangen is a major epic tradition of the Maranao people around Lake Lanao in Mindanao. Its name is associated with the idea of narrating through song.

The epic existed before the Islamization of the Philippines and forms part of a much older oral storytelling tradition. It contains stories involving heroes, customs, values, law, and social relationships.

Large portions of the epic were historically transmitted orally rather than through written books.

UNESCO inscribed the Darangen on the Representative List in 2008. The tradition demonstrates how an enormous body of cultural knowledge can survive through performance and memory.

© UNESCO