Maranaos and the torogan

MARANAOS AND THE

TOROGAN

AGUILA, PATRICIA CAMILLE T.

MARANAOSarinamok - is a legendary bird of the Maranao that has become a ubiquitous symbol of their art.

Maranao also known as “ people of the lake” is the largest ethnolonguistic group.

Maranao has a 1,142,000 or 1.25% of total population.

The life of the Maranaos is centered on Lake Lanao, the largest in Mindanao, and the second largest and deepest lake in the Philippines.

Maranao are one of three related indigenous Moro groups native to the island of Mindanao. In turn, these groups also share genes, linguistic and cultural ties to non-Muslim Lumad groups such as the Tiruray or Subanon.

MARANAO:CULTURE

Maranao is an Austronesian language spoken by the Maranao people in the provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur in the Philippines.

The native Maranao have a fascinating culture that revolves around kulintang music, a specific type of gong music, found among both Muslim and non-Muslim groups of the Southern Philippines.

Biyula is another Instrument for the Maranao people to use.

Exquisite Maranao cuisine and hospitality are palpable. They are known of having a spicy taste in their foods. A condiment made of traditionally cultivated spices, locally known as Palapa is one of their distinguished cuisine symbol. It is made of stewed scallion bulbs or “sakurab” in Maranao. The thinly sliced scallion bulbs and ginger are caramelized by slow cooking and mixed with chillies and little coconut oil.

MARANAO:ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES

The four settlement principalities is know as pangampong, around lake Lanao in the province of Lanao del Sur are the traditional population center of the Maranaos.

These settlements are organized like a hamlet, consisting of three to thirty multifamily dwellings.

In areas where wet – rice agriculture is practiced, the houses are generally organized in rows following the length of a river, road or lakeshore while in dry areas, communities are smaller and the houses may aggregate irregularly near a water source.


o THREE TYPES OF MARANAO HOUSES:

Lawig or small houses

Mala – a – walai or large house

The torogan, the ornately decorated ancestral residence of the datu and his extended family.


Lawigs vary in size from field huts, which are raised above ground on stilts with lean-to roofing and an outdoor cooking area.

These structures are mainly used for sleeping.

These are common household structures which have an interior hearth.

Usually occupied by a single family unit, the lawig is not normally adorned, except for an occasional wooden adornment that may embellish the window sill or door portal.

LAWIG HOUSE


Mala–a-walai is a single room and partitionless structure, is a house of a well-to-do family.

Although architectural ornaments are present in the structure, the house does not have the panolong – an elaborately carved beam extension identified with the royal torogan.

The okir decorations are generally to be found on the baseboards, windowsills and doorjambs.

The house stands 0.3-2.2 meters above the ground and rest on 9 to 12 bamboos or wooden poles.

The kinansad, a bamboo- fenced porch, marks the façade of the house; the kitchen which is 0.50 meters lower than the structure is located at the back.

The main body houses the sleeping area, which doubles as a living and working area at daytime.

Storage space can be found underneath the main house and the kitchen.


Chests, headboards, mosquito screens or sapiyay or woven split rattan are used to partition the interior into sleeping and non- sleeping zones.

The roof of mala-a-walai is made of thick cogon thatch secured on bamboo frames by rattan chords or occasionally, of bamboo spliced into 12 halves or rangeb.

Notched bamboo poles are placed at the fron and back of the house to serve as ladders.

MALA - A - WALAI

TOROGAN

The Torogan is the ancestral house of the upper-class Maranao in the Lanao Region of Mindanao. It is the dwelling place of the datu along with his wives and children. There could not be any house larger than torogan of the datu within the sultanate, for this signifies rank, prestige and wealth.

The existing torogans were built by the community and the slaves for the datu in 1800s. This house of the datu has no partitions and it is a multifamily dwelling where all the wives and the children of the datu lived.

TOROGAN:ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS

The windows of torogan are slits and richly framed in wood panels with okir designs located in front of the house.

The communal kitchen is half a meter lower than the main house is both used for cooking and eating.

The distinct high gable roof of the torogan, thin at the apex and gracefully flaring out to the eaves, sits on a huge structures enclosed by slabs of timber and lifted more than two meters above the ground by a huge trunk of a tree that was set on a rock.

The end floor beams lengthen as panolongs the seemed to lift up the whole house.

The torogan is suffused with decorations. There were diongal at the apex of the roof, also an intricately carved tinai a walai, okir designs in the floor, on windows and on panolongs. There were also brightly colored weaves or malongs hanging from the rafters, it was hung up using ropes around a particular territory for privacy. The house was built to sway during earthquakes.

Twenty-five post of huge tree trunks were not buried but are freestanding. Sometimes, if needed, wooden pegs were used to secure the wood members. These were all used to prevent the house from collapsing.

TOROGAN:ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES

o Maranao Torogan house: The most noticeable feature

of the torogan is the panolong, a wing- like house beam with a pako rabong or fern or naga or serpent motif.

These are ends of the floor beams that project and splay out like triangular butterfly wings on the façade and side elevations.

The motifs are chiseled in high relief and painted with bright hues. The side strips, facade panels, and window frames are lavished in the same fashion.


The interior of the house is a cavernous hall with no permanent wall partitions.

Supporting the kingpost of the high- ridged roof is the rampatan or tinai a walai central beams considered as the intestines of the house.

What serves as the ceiling is a cloth suspended from the rafters to absorb the heat from the roof.

A carabao horn ornament at the roof apex of the rumah adat in Batak, Indonesia is distinguish from the Maranao dongal.

To asses the torogan’s strength and resilience, it is traditional to have two carabaos fight inside the structure; if the structure collapsed, the house was dismissed as unworthy to be inhabited.


SECTION

OF

MARANAO

TOROGAN

HOUSE

Maranaos and the torogan

Business

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