Sei sulla pagina 1di 16

Coastal and Inland Dwellings

Mindanao & Sulu

By Julian E. Dacanay/ Photography: Joseph R. Fortin
Folk Architecture

ssalamu Alaikum. Peace be unto you. The

word Islam literally means peace but its deepest meaning
carries with it a complete submission to Gods will. A
muslims first confession of belief is that there is but one God,
the Lord of creation, and Muhammad is His prophet.
No matter where they live, Muslims belong to the
spiritual, worldwide, non-territorial Umma, the Islamic social
community where their doctrines, customs and laws are
maintained and preserved in the divinely prescribed ideology
and faith.
Their homeland or the region they inhabit is dar alIslam or the abode of Islam and it is their duty not to allow it to fall into dar al-Harb, the abode of war or the
territory of non-believers.
The Islamization of the Philippines, in the context of dar al-Islam, was part of the Indo-Malaysian
Islamization that lasted from the ninth to the 15th centuries. Today, island Southeast Asia has one of the
heaviest concentrations of Muslims approximately about 133 million human beings and the Philippines is
still part of this Islamized Malay world of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei which owes much to the
Islamic civilization of Arabia and the Middle East.
The Muslims in the southern Philippines are found principally in the Sulu Archipelago, in the western
and southern portions of Mindanao around Lake Lanao and in the broad valley of the Pulangi River in
Cotabato and on the island of Palawan south of Puerto Princesa. Muslims calm they number five million as
against a highly unreliable census figure of over two million.
Most engage in fishing, agriculture or trade while educated Muslim Filipinos are leaving their mark on
the different professions: law, medicine, politics.
As recently as 1954, most Muslims did not consider
themselves Filipinos but preferred to be identified under the
names of their ethnic groupings. I am a Tausug, you are a Samal,
they are Maranao and Magindanao, and we are also Yakan,
Palawani, Jama Mapun, Sangin, Malibuganon and yes, I am
Badjao to you but Luwaan to the Tausug.
In 1450 Sayad al-Hashim Abu Bakr, born of an Arabian
Sultan in the seacoast town of Malacca in Malay peninsula,
founded the Sultanate of Sulu and for nearly 500 years all the
succeeding sultans claimed descent from him. At the height of its
power, the Sultanate loosely patterned after the Arabic model
ruled over the province of Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Basilan, Palawan,
Zamboanga, Sabah and the Celebes.
The Sultanate of Magindanao was founded by Sharif
Kabungguhan and all the tarsilas of Maranao sultans and datus
traced their ancestry back to this Arab immigrant from Johore and
Hadramaut of South Arabia.
The Magindanao Muslims had three preeminent sultanates
while 43 sultanates have been identified among the Maranao. In
1915 the 27th Sultan, Jamal-ul Kiram II, surrendered all his claims

to temporal authority in Sulu to the United States government. The end of the Moro wars against Spain in the
south had also marked the decline of the sultanates.
The sultan was the sovereign of a Muslim state and the highest ecclesiastical and political
authority. The powers of government were vested in the sultan and in the Rhuma Bechara, an assembly
made up of datus who sat in council with the sultan. Thus it can be said in that the sultanate as a form of
Islamic government existed in southern Philippines long before the coming of the Spaniards.
And, indeed, Sayad Abu Bakir, in establishing in 1450 the
first sultanate of Sulu, set up the first centralized political
bureaucracy in the country, the first state and the first
congress, antedating the Malolos Congress by at least four
Unlike the Igorots and other unhispanized minorities,
we are not just a culture. Our Muslim civilization is the peer
of Western civilization. We share a sense of Islamic
brotherhood with millions in other countries halfway around
the world and a sense of biological linkage to our ancestors.
This gives us a powerful feeling of continuity, unity and
Islam, however, did not introduce a total alien type
of social and political organization among the peoples of
the southern Philippines. For the Islam that prevailed in Southeast Asia was a non-aggressive, flexible creed
that enabled its adherents to retain their folkways. And when it reached the Philippine South, Islam blended
with the existing local Hindu-Chinese-paganistic practices of the natives.
Thus the pre-islamic timuways evolved into the datus of the Muslim faith and the powerful and
independent rajas of the ancient barangay became the sultans of Moro society. And the difference between
the datu and the sultan is that the sultan, for all the Islamic trappings of his office and despite the fact that the
Prophets blood was said to run in his veins, was essentially a datu among datus.
At this time that Sulu became an Islamic power, Manila and Cebu were but small and insignificant
settlements whereas Buansa or what is now Jolo was already a thriving international port and the richest
settlement in the Philippine Islands.
The concept of kingship or sultanate teaches that all
lands in a given area belong to the community and either
the sultan or the datu is the communitys trustee. He alone
has the sole authority to decide who should use which
parcel of the communitys land. Thus individuals only
receive the right to use a portion of the land, not to own it.
This notion of land as a perpetual communal heritage has
been part of the Muslim customary law, the adat.
When the Americans at the turn of the century
made their cadastal surveys and introduced the system of
Torrens titles, they violated and cut into this hallowed heart
of ancient Muslim lore and land became alienable property,
a dar al-Harb, the territory of non-believers. Huge rubber
and peanut plantations owned by individual Americans sprang up in Cotabato, Lanao, Cagaya de Sulu, and
Siasi. Between 1913 and 1917 six agricultural colonies were found in Cotabao and one in Lanao.
It was the Commonwealth government that initiated the massive migration of Christian Filipinos to the
In 1953 Magsaysay became president of the Philippines and offered all surrendering Huks attractive
homesteads on what Muslims considered their traditional and sacred land.

In 1968 an organized Muslim group warned that Mindanao adat had reserved the gold the mines of
Selatan and other areas for the local people since these areas formed part of the ceremonial bantingan
dowry of ancient Muslim kingdoms. The Bureau of Mines would not recognize ancient kingdoms, much less
their bantingan, and forthwith invited private prospectors to bid for 484,000 hectares of dowry land.
In 1970 the Mindanao shooting war the Christian Ilagas against the Muslim Barracudas started in
Cotabato and Lanao. A secessionist movement seeking a Bangsa Moro, a sovereign Muslim state, was
initiated principally by the Tausug.
Jolo was burned on February 8, 1974 by governmental troops and only a memory was left after its

Coastal and Inland Dwellings Badjao

here is a legend among the Badjao of Tawi-Tawi and Sibutu that their ancestors once
lived in villages of house-boats at Johore. A strong wind arose one day and the leader of the village in great
fear, stuck a pole into the sea floor and tied his boat to it, with the rest of the villagers tying their boats to that
of their leader. But the sea floor turned out to be the nose of a giant sting ray which pulled all their boats far
into the open to the Sulu archipelago.
In the Genealogy of Sulu, a traditional history of the
Tausug, the Badjao were mentioned as coming from Johore
and driven by the tempest to Brunei and Mindanao. Najeeb
Saleeby, in his book The History of Sulu (1908), says that the
Badjao or Samal of Johomore migrated to the southern
Philippines in the early 14th century, before the first Muslim
But legend, genealogy and historical reports
notwithstanding, contemporary anthropologist such as H.
Arlo Nimmo believe that there was no such exodus from
Johore in the 14th century because they would have left
pockets of their members along their routes of migration:
there are no Badjao found on the southern and northern
Borneo coasts or in Java and Sumatra.
As explained by Nimmo, the boat-dwelling habit, which is a practical adaptation to reef living and
fishing, must have evolved independently among certain Samal groups such as the Badjao of Sulu, and it is
this habit, rather than migrating boat-dwellers, that has spread throughout Malaysia.
Before the MNLF secessionist movement out in Sulu, two major Badjao groups were the Tawi-Tawi,
Sibutu and Semporna (Sabah) group or southern Badjao and the Siasi, Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga group
or northern Badjao. According to Nimmo, the southern Badjao viewed themselves as a single bangsa (they
used this term before the MNLF did) with a population conservatively estimated at 6,000.
There were some 1,500 Badjao in six different villages in Tawi-Tawi, namely, Luuk Tulai, Bandulan,
Tungkalang, Lamiun, Tungbangkao and Lioboran. In Sibutu, 3,500 Badjao were found in the villages of
Sitangkal, Tungehat, Tandowak, and Omapoi while the two Semporna villages, Bangau-Bangau and
Labuanghadji, added approximately 1,000 to the entire
Badjao bangsa.
Of the three groups, the Tawi-Tawi Badjao were
found to be the most conservative: before the Bangsa Moro
uprising, about two-thirds of them still used boats as
permanent living quarters, and some of their villages
consisted of flotillas with no houses. The Sibutu Badjao, as

the Semporna Badjao, were predominantly house-dwellers who used the boat as living quarters only during
fishing trips.
Tungkalang, on the southernmost end of Sanga-Sanga island, was the largest Badjao village in TawiTawi. It had a flotilla of 80 houseboats of different builds and sizes and 17 pile houses poorly constructed in
shallow water and on along exposed sandbar. The population of the village was about 400 but this varied
significantly from day to day and during certain phases of the moon, when Badjao went on fishing trips of a
weeks or 10 days duration.
There are many houseboats in Tungkalang, among them the lipa, djenging and dapang. The lipa has
no outriggers while the djenging and dapang have. Over both the lipa and djenging, boats and houses are
built to shelter the Badjao from sun and rain their structures, however, are different. The lipa house
structure is loose and detachable: long poles are attached ehre and there to frame the shape over which a
nipa roof is rolled, wile over the djenging the house structure is walled in on all sides by wooden boards,
nailed permanently, with window openings and doors and galvanized sheet for the roof. The size of the
djenging seems to depend on family status: a poor family that can afford only a smaller boat uses, for the
roof and walling, nipa and matted coconut leaves, patched up here and there with thick sackcloth or
cardboard, pieces of wood, bamboo slats and rusty galvanized sheets a floating Sulu barong-barong. The
dapang is a boat of varied sizes and lengths, with outriggers, and is used for fishing or short trips. Other
boats are simple dugouts, used for transport between house-boats and oftentimes in the care of the young.
We stayed in the houseboat of Jamiluddin for several days,
either squatting or lying down under the low roof of the boat
all hours of the day. To stretch a leg, we had to crawl out of
the small space of a boatroom and stand on the ledge-lank
where the prow begins. The furnishings in Jamilludins boat
are just about the same in all the other boats: a sail, a lamp
for fishin, one suitcase, a water jar, a stove, several pots
and three plates, two bolos, a small chest, pillows and mats.
The flooring is made of planks loosely pieced together and
unnailed, so that things can be hidden underneath, like
extra stoves and other pots. The rest of the flooring is made
of bamboo slats. The roof is of galvanized iron but the sides
are of nipa and rice straw. Above the roof and stuck
between two holes with branching fingers are his fishing
spears; he also owns a harpoon gun. The roof at its highest
point is about three fee, and that is just enough for a person to squat without his head touching it.
At night you sleep crosswise on the length of the boat and your body hurts the first time because the
flooring is uneven: your head and legs follow the upward slope of the bamboo slats while your lower back
rump presses on the wooden planks.
You cannot stretch your legs as straight as you would want to, for the suitcase, the baol, and the pile
of nets crowd the nipa walls; at best you take an oblique position or simply tuck your legs in as if you were
cold. When you wake up in the morning, you find your face, arms and legs sticky with moisture. At noon,
lying down, you feel the heat of the sun coming down from the roof; it is a warm kind of heat in which you
can hardly breathe. And the sun reflections on the water dance on the ledges of the roof and hold you in a
blind trance.
The Badjao subsist on cassava and fish for their whole life. They either buy these cassava roots or
reap them from the fields inland, from the sides of mountains, or clearings in the woods. They have rice only
on festive occasions or as a form of dessert, they do not eat meat.
Maysahani, a boat builder and fisherman, built is house over the water using such tools as two native
patuk axes, hammer, plane, chisel and a drill; he did not even have a saw. The walls of his house were
made of wood planks cut into boards from trees gathered in the inland woods. Posts are tree trunks; the roof
is made of nipa and matted coconut leaves; the front doors swing from rotating wooden hinges.
What did we see in a Badjao house? The stairs, with three rungs above the water, leads a porch-like
landing of irregularly-spaced boards, and to a one-room, two-door structure that is a combination sala and
sleeping room without beds. The stairs are also where the woman of the house sometimes does her washing

by simply squatting on the last rung and soaking the clothes in sea water and slamming them against the
stair post to dry; in like manner she washes plates and cooking pots. The stairs are fenced like a small
verandah at the top and on the landing one sees poles that serve as washlines together with dried tree
trunks, stumps and firewood.
The cramped living room has two entrance doors with two small windows shaped out of the center
wall and overlooking the landing; one side has another window and the other side has a door that leads to
the kitchen. The sala has two wooden benches, a water jar in one corner, a toolbox on the center side, and
three mirrors on separate walls; across one roofbeam hangs a pile of fishing nets.
The mirrors are placed in such a slanting way that one finds great difficulty in seeing his image in any
one of them. Actually, they hang there only to signify the number of children in the house, and mirrors are
meant to drive away evil spirits. Nationalistic scenes are crudely painted on them: the flag and eagle symbols
of the Republic of the Philippines, the Leyte landing of MacArthur and his famous lines of I Shall Return,
and the portrait of Jose Rizal as patriot and hero. These mirrors, we are told, were brought in the town of
The sleeping room is practically empty. A shelf
protrudes from one side and holds a suitcase; a mat
spreads out on the floor; and between two beams on the
exposed roof, a long plank carries a white duffel bag.
The kitchen furnishings are two stoves, one built on
three rocks over a circular metal disk; a water jar and a big
kerosene can, a coconut grater. In one corner, a flatbottomed basket covers papaya fruits, cassava roots, and
several coconuts; a branch of chili pepper leaves sticks out
from the wall. Several pots around the stoves. The kitchen
door at the end exits onto a long plank that spans the
flooring of the next houses, however, stand apart from one
The Badjao, water people though they are, do go on
and stay on land when they die and are buried. In TawiTawi, the traditional burial grounds of the southern Badjao
are Bilatan Boon and Bunabunaan. As their native religion
is a form of ancestor worship, the Badjao make frequent cemetery visits to ask favors from the spirits of their
deceased ancestors and relatives. They carve gravemarkers into birds and sea horses and serpents to
transport these spirits into another life. They adorn their grave-plots with canopies and colored paper
parasols and buntings. Their panglima or headman and imam or religious leader stick into this sacred ground
little banners of red, blue, yellow and green colors and chant prayers over the dead.
Because these spirts are still part of the family, a part of their life, the Badjao come to comfort them
and make them as happy as the living. They offer their deceased ancestors food and packs of cigarettes and
betel nuts and sprinkle on ever corner of their graves sweet smelling tonic from tiny bottles that are
manufactured by the Chinese in another part of the Philippine world: Caloocan, Rizal.

Coastal and Inland Dwellings Samal

n the Sulu Archipelago, the Samal mix on various
islands with the Tausug who are the dominant group and
whose concentration is in the Jolo island cluster. Generally
the Tausug outnumber other groups in the northern half of
Sulu and the Samal increase in number in the southern half,
nearest Borneo.
Such a situation has led Stone (1974) to make the
observation that differences in housing between the

Tausug and Samal are not clearly marked as between the Badjao and other groups. In the market centers
Jolo, Siasi, and Bonggao the Philippine plaza, perhaps a school, shops and at times, houses of the elite.
Moving away from the plaza one finds houses belonging to Christians and Chinese-mestizo elite.
Construction is similar, usually manufactured board and either galvanized tin or shingle roofing, generally
unpainted. Construction quality deteriorates the farther away from the plaza the house is located.
At the farthest point, Stone continues, house construction is generally a variation of the Southeast
Asian stilt houses with woven bamboo siding, bamboo flooring, and bamboo or palm frond roofing. Generally
speaking, in Jolo, the Tausug who are permanent residents will live farther away from the water than the
Stone also points out that in Siasi, the Tausug live on one side of the quay, the Samal on the other,
with the Chinese shopkeepers and Christians living about the plaza. The outlying districts of Siasi are also
much more homogenous in make-up. Bongao is similar to Siasi in housing arrangement, and has also
surrounding homegenous districts. The Samal in Bongao are seemingly more affluent than in the north and
live in houses similar in construction to the Tausug, with manufactured siding although many times, the
flooring will be bamboo strings and roofing will be front material.
Orosa in 1923 identifies the Samal Lipid who lived
near the seashore in the islands of the Samales Group,
Parang, Siasi, Laminusa, Sibaud, Musu, Manubul,
Sipababag, Pakia, South Ubian as made of strong
materials and fairly well built with a kind of bridge often
extending from the house to a landing place built in the
Geoghegan (in Lebar 1975) describes Samal of
eastern Sulu and Basilan as living in small, compact
communities of 100 to 500 people, often constituting a ward
withing a larger non-Samal village or town. Small
households are generally affiliated with a nearby mosque
and its leader. Houses consists of one or more small
rectangular rooms and an attached kitchen, all on the same
level and raised above the ground on wooden pilings.
Ideally, writes Geoghegan, a house is located partially over water in such a manner as to allow the ground
beneath it to be flooded only at high tide.
The Samal of western Sulu, however, customarily build their houses completely over tidal mud flats
or reefs. The Samal cluster their houses together and connect them by labyrinthine catwalks of timber and
split bamboo (Gowing 1979).
In Jundams field report, the Samal area to be found scattered all over the southern islands of
Mindanao, southern Palawan, Basilan, Davao, Zamboanga, and the Sulu archipelago. In north Borneo, the
Samal are reported to inhabit certain parts of Kuta-Kinabalu, Sampurna, Kalimantan, Samarinda, and
Celebes. It is believed that 60 percent of the population of Sampurna are Samal.
Within Tawi-Tawi province alone, Samal communities include Simunul, Balimbing, Tawi-Tawi, Sibutu,
and Ublan. Aside from the Tausug, Badjao and Pulion-Mapun, non-islamized people living within Tawi-Tawi
communities include Ilocano, Hiligaynon, Cebuanao and Chabacano.
Apart from fishing and farming, logging and hunting, the Samal are engaged in seaweed farming,
kumpit building, buras painting and pottery, drying and preserving food and marine products, mat weaving
and pearl diving. A good number are in transportation, communications, restaurants and refreshment parlors,
carpentry and other crafts. They also work in government and private institutions.

Coastal and Inland Dwellings Subanun

harles Frake in his study of the Subanun of Mindanao
(1980) gives a sociological explanation of their traditional
dwelling. The Subanun house a rectangular, thatched
pole dwelling has among its physical aspects, three
characteristics of social importance. First, it is small, as
floor space averages about 12 square meters and rarely
exceeds 20. this small size reflects single family occupancy,
but it has the consequence of limiting the number of
persons that can assemble together.
With the exception of all few religious ceremonies,
all Subanun social functions take place indoors in a
dwelling house; there are no outdoor areas or other
buildings for such purposes. Although an all-night drinking
party, a legal case, a wedding or a religious ceremony may
pack people until there is literally standing room only,
attendance at social gatherings can exceed 40 or 50
persons only with difficulty.
Frake describes the interior of a Subanun house as
consisting of only one room and one heart. The sleeping
area, the living area, the dining area and the cooking area
find architectural expression only in slightly different floor
levels. There is little privacy in working, cooking, eating or
conservation. Pricacy comes only with darkness. The Subanun house, Frake concludes, has no value as
permanent real estate.
The Subanun are non-religious shifting agriculturists in the large mountainous interior of Zamboanga

Mandaya - Coastal and Inland Dwellings

he Mandaya of Davao build their dwellings high in the
branches of trees and oftenon the edges of cliffs which can
be reached only from one direction. The tree houses are of
two kinds the first is a crude one simply resting on the
limbs of trees and conforming size and shape to the nature
of the supporting branches. This type sometimes has
horizontal sides and sloping roofs. The roof usually slopes
directly from one ridgepole to the edge of the platform, thus
doing away wit the need for side walls. The more typical
Mandaya house is built on top of a tree that has been cut
15 or 20 feet above the ground with the stumps serving as
foundation. Many more smaller poles are placed not only to
support the flooring but also to extend upward to form the
wall and the roof. An upper flooring made of beaten bark
rests on crossbeams lashed by rattan to the uprights. Above the flooring are horizontal poles forming the
framework for attaching walls of nipa palms.
In some houses two or tree foundation poles extend above the floor to support the ridge pole. In
other houses the Mandaya would have kingposts resting on the beams which in turn are supported by corner
poles. From the ridge, a number of smaller rods extend over the side walls and on them rests the roofing of
nipa palm. Several inches of space often intervene between the roof and the side walls.

The whole tree house is so firmly lashed together by rattan that it can withstand the severest of
storms, although it moves and creaks with every gust of wind: In such a case the house is secured further by
anchoring it with rattan lines nearby trees.

Yakan - Coastal and Inland Dwellings

What makes the Yakan, the Tausug and the Maranao
different from the Tagalog and the Cebuano is simply Islam
and the system of sultans and datus.
For outside of their mosques which tower above the
rural landscape, there is nothing significantly Islamic about
the settlement patterns and housing of Muslims in southern
Philippines. For instance, the torogan, the royal house of
sultans and datus, no longer functions as one in Maranao
country an indication that what was once a symbol of
Muslim ruling power is only an old glory of the past
By tradition, the Yakan live in houses scattered
among their fields, just like the interior-dwelling Tausug of
Sulu, and just like many Tagalog and Visayan do. But, in
the rebel war in Basilan in the 1970s, government forces made the Yakan come together in protected
villages much against their habit and preference.
The Yakan house, also elevated on piles with the stilts two or three meters in height, is one or more
rooms connected to a kitchen by an open or covered porch made of split bamboo poles. The roof is conical
and steep, usually made of thatch for protection against heavy rain. For walls, the Yakan use either sawali or
horizontally-placed wooden boards or bamboo poles bound together with rattan, and for the floor, either split
bamboo or rough wood supported by heavy posts. The Yakan make very small and very few windows in
order to block bad spirits from entering the house so easily.
The Yakan are careful in building their stairs for the number of steps just like the number of rooms
must be an odd number. Even numbers connote death and other ill omen while odd numbers, to the, mean
life. The Rites of Pilgrimage says that God has 99, or a 100 minus one, excellent names and he who learns
them by heart will be given access to Paradise because God is One and He likes odd numbers.
And the door of the house must face the east to embrace the morning sun and take in its promise of
live and all of Gods new blessings.
When visiting a Yakan house you go up on a bamboo ladder or notched pole onto the porch and into
the living room where, if you will not come upon some woman weaving cloth with one end of the loom
fastened to the wall and the other end-cord wound around her waist, you will see a long wooden or bamboo
box for storing palay and used as a bench for visitors to sit on, chests for keeping clothes, brass metal
containers, brass food trays, bronze boxes for betel and, of course, the mats. The Yakan cultivate kapok
which they stuff into pillows and mattresses that they roll out at night or also offer to visitors to sit on at
parties and gatherings.

Tausug - Coastal and Inland Dwellings

he Tausug, as found in a barrio in Parang, Jolo, before
the secessionist conflagration, had a settlement pattern that
is dispersed. There were 28 houses and 17 were scattered
throughout the barrio. Eleven houses, however, were
clustered in groups of two or three houses built a few yards
from one another. The Tausug called their traditional house
bay sinug, bay for house and sinug from Sug, meaning Jolo
or Sulu.
In constrast to these dispersed interior homesteads,
concentrated fishing settlements were found along the
coasts, and here each community of Tausug shoredwellers would have from 20 to 100 or more houses; and
clusters of several houses were typical.
The Samal, the other ethnic group in Sulu,
segregate themselves from the Tausug in small, compact
communities of 100 to 500 people. Being a coastal and
seafearing people. They build their houses in clusters over
tidal mud flats or reefs or, more specifically, on ground that
is flooded only at high tide. Consisting of one or more small
rectangular rooms and an attached kitchen all on the same
level, Smal houses are raised on wooden pilings and
connected to one another by labyrinthine cat-walks of
timber and split bamboo.
Building a house among the Tausug involves consultations with families,
some seers or mangingita, the barrio headman or the local imam who chooses the luckiest site for the
prospective builder. First choice is a very flat, dry, level piece of land while the land that slopes gently
towards the west Mecca lies to the west is the next choice.
The Tausug also have no desire for land that slopes slightly to the north or one that slants to the
south. They believe that in death the spirit of the deceased passes out of the house and travels northward
thus, any association with death makes a site undesirable. A house built facing south becomes vulnerable to
all the strong winds and rains coming from that direction.
If the builder wishes his houses to be strong and to
last, he has to build them not only on a choice site but also
on a line of strength of the land a small rise in the soil, a
peculiar growth of grass, the presence of rocks. To the
Tausug, land is not a pure and passive matter, but is
dynamic, it has strength. The lines of strength are
analogous to the bodys muscles. The imams tasks is to
determine the direction or the flow of such strength lest the
muscles of the land work against the substructure and
weaken the house.
To insure good fortune for the house and for every
member of the family, the Tausug deposit at the botton of
the first post hole some items of value: a small piece of gold, a patch of expensive cloth, or a handful of
After the flooring is finished, the Tausug perform what is known as the ceremonial gantung. Gantung
is actually a small earthenware pot tied to the center post under the flooring with a vine or cord. The other
end of the cord is secured to something substantial and possessing natural strength, such as a nearby tree
or a large stone.
The Tausug see the cord connecting the gantung to a rock or tree as the umbilical cord giving
strength and sustenance to the center post or navel of the house. In a way, house-building among the
Tausug can almost be construed as corresponding to the birth of a human being.

Every child is born with a spirit-twin. This is considered a source of bad luck among the Tausug. In
order to keep the spirit-twin from troubling the child, the Tausug build a small bay-bay house and hang this
from the rafter. Here the spirit lives and is fed a small amount of rice and egg every Friday at sundown. The
Tausug burn a few grains of incense in a small dish and place
this inside the little house.
Once their dwelling is completed, the Tausug perform a
second gantung ceremony. This time they fill up one bottle with
unhusked rice and another with fresh water and, after sealing
them both, hang them from the top of the center king post just
under the roofing. The unhusked rice will bring prosperity for
the family and the water will insure that the house be cool and
confer luck and good fortune on its occupants.
For posts, the Tausug use either heavy timber bought
in the town of Jolo or roughly-hewn wood cut from small trees
and plain bamboo. Once these posts are erected, the Tausug
then put into place large wooden beams or hanglad to secure
and stabilize the houseposts and provide support for the
flooring. This floor area makes up the bilik or sleeping space,
which is the only room in the house proper supported by the
nine basic posts
Building a Tausug house is like creating a human being: the nine main posts are named after parts of
the human body. Indeed the erection of the posts follows a sequence that corresponds to the supposed
genesis of the human body:
First post: the center post or navel
Second post: the southeast corner post or hip
Third post: the northwest corner post or shoulder
Fourth post: the southwest corner or second hip
Fifth post: the northwest corner or second shoulder
Sixth and seventh posts: the middle posts on the west and east sides of the center post or the ribs.
Eight post: the north and post or neck
Ninth post: the last, directly south of the center or the groin.
are the porch or salas and the kitchen or kusina. The flooring,
supported by thin wooden beams, is made of strong bamboo
strips fitted closely together.
In the past, when nails were not available, the durable
hijuk vine from the sugar palm tree tied the structural parts
together. Nowadays, however, most of the beams and girders
come together through notches cut either on the side of the
wooden post or on top of the bamboo post.
However, when a bamboo beam is attached to a
wooden post, a wooden support is nailed or bolted on to the
post. And if a wooden beam is joined to a bamboo beam, the
Tausug builder cuts a hole through the bamboo tube and
inserts the wooden beam into place.
All the eight peripheral houseposts go beyond the
flooring to hold up the roof, with the beams connecting their
tops on all sides. The neck, groin and navel posts extend upward to support the ridge beam which, together
with the rafters that slope down from it to the beams, gives the final shape to the roof.

The Tausug use sani, nipa or piaud in palm-leaf roofing. If the oof shingles are thickly made and the
palm properly prepared, the sani or sago palm roof is said to last much longer than the nipa roof which has a
life expectancy of at most two years. Alternating layers of woven coconut palms and leaves from the marang
fruit tree make up the piaud roof and is good for only a year.
The sago palm leaves are tied to the bamboo purlins which are secured and spaced three
centimeters apart on the rafters.
Aside from this conventional style of roofing, the Tausug also build the sungan roof and the libut roof.
Although the sungan roof slopes on four sides, only two sids meet to form the apex of the roof. The north
and south ends of the roof thus provide a small opening for air to circulate more freely within the house.
During inclement weather, however, the Tausug cover this hole with strips of bamboo or cloth to protect the
interior from the strong rain and onrushing wind.
The libut roof slopes on all four sides and has a square shape. Over a square hole in the middle rises
a small second roof about 31 centimeters above the hole. Such an opening like that or the sungan roof,
allows a freer circulation of air in the house.
The sungan roof is about as popular as the conventional roof style. Noteworthy is the elaborately
carved wood design the tadjuk pasung placed at the rooftop on either or both ends of the house. The
tadjuk pasung may be a stylized manuk-manuk bird with swirling leaf-like okir designs or a naga dragon
The libut roof can hardly be seen. At the center under the roof is a carved wooden marker which the
owner designates as the pusal or cowlick. The cowlick is closely related to the Tausug concept of royalty and
royal blood lines.
The Tausug not only do not put partitions in their main bilik or room; they also do not build a ceiling,
leaving the rafters and roof exposed just like that. What they hang instead, high over their bedding area, is
the large, rectangular luhul-luhul cloth like a net closing up that section of the roof to catch a falling shreds of
palm, small insects, and dirt and dust.
For walls, the Tausug use, depending on what they
can afford, plywood, split bamboo, or woven coconut palms,
the bamboo is cut into lengths of six or eight feet long and
the insides of two pieces are place vertically facing one
another in a kind of double-ply walling that besides being
smooth both outside and inside the house gives stronger
protection against wind and rain.
Split bamboo walls have small and simple
rectangular windows but the Tausug do not put any window
on walls made of coconut palm or woven split bamboo.
Those who use plywood construct windows with wooden
gratings. In the past, however, the Tausug had only narrow
slits on their walls that served more as peepholes than
openings for room ventilation. Two reasons were given for
this: one is that the occupants particularly the unmarried
women should not be exposed or seen from the outside,
and the other is that since there was little activity in the bilik
during the day, there was no need to make it light and airy.
But even if walls of plywood, bamboo or palm leaf
completely enclose their bilik, the Tausug manage to have
some air circulate through the house by placing between
the wall and the roof, perforated wooded jalajala panels with decorative carvings. Such panels may also
support banisters and railings. Under eaves and railings are small slats of wood that form geometric designs.
Any extended roofless platform outside the bilik becomes the porch or salas which the Tausug build
either in front or at the sides or all around. If extended a full two or 3.8 meters in front, the porch serves as a
welcoming area for visitors. Side porches become passageways to the kitchen, or they may be walled and

converted into sleeping quarters. In some houses the roof extends downward to shade the porch area where
a ladder is also placed. Sometimes the porch has railings of bamboo and wood.
On the front porch is a long high bench comfortable enough for resting on especially during warm
weather. Here older people gather to smoke or chew their tobacco and buyo.
If the roofless platform extends next to the kitchen at the back, it is called pantan, and the members
of the family sit around here in the late afternoon while waiting for supper. At the pantan they may also leave
fruits, vegetables, fishing nets, paddles and all other work implements that they use.
The kitchen is a small and filmsy one-room house built 31.5 centimeters or so lower than the house
proper. When no porch leads to the kitchen, bamboo poles or wooden boards from a door opening serve as
a link to it. The kitchen stove a table-like structure of bamboo and wood occupies an area of
approximately 62 centimeters by 157.5 centimeters and has side-walls to prevent cinders from falling to the
bamboo floor. Pots and pans are supported over the fire by three large stones or a small three-legged iron
One final note is the opening on the floor that the Tausug put either in a corner or near the wall of
their house. Here they urinate or spit, and if there house is built over water, here the mother teaches her
baby early toilet habits. Even in houses with provision for a comfort room, this lungag or hole is still present
because the Tausug use this opening in bathing the body of a love one at the time of death.

Maranao - Coastal and Inland Dwellings

he Maranao arrange their houses in a line patter
along a liver, road or lake shore. Each hamlet is made up of
three to 30 multi-family dwellings raised on pilings 31.5 to
220.5 centimeters above the ground. In the hilly, dry-rice
areas hamlets are smaller and their houses cluster in an
irregular pattern near a water source.
The Maranao house is raised on pilings from .31 to
2.21 meters above the ground. The roof, walls, flooring,
doors and windows are made of bamboo material lashed
together with rattan. Depending on its size, the house
usually has nine to 12 posts and the main room, without
partitions, measure about 7.86 to 18.9 meters.
For the roof, which is steep and shaped like the
carabaos horns, the Maranao usually use thick cogon
grass and lash this to a split bamboo frame with rattan. But
if they have enough bamboo, they use them for roofing
instead, placing one set of halved bamboo face up and
covering all the spaces in between with the other halves in
sequential patterns. Some use wood shingles as roof, but
this is not a traditional practice. Most of the houses have no ceiling.
Windows are located at the front to watch neighbors pass by and on the right side to check on
the carabao inside its corral below the house, especially at night. To open the windows, one has to push
their covers to the side.
The porch, fenced to prevent children from falling off it, is in front of the house while the kitchen, built
a half meter lower, is at the back. The area under the house is walled with split bamboo usually woven in
crisscross patterns. Here the women weave mats during the daytime when it is hot. The porch ladder has
bamboo ladder leads to the kitchen door at the left side.

Like many ordinary houses in the south, the old Maranao house is simply one big partitionless room
and you create bed spaces by using several carved chests, the woven split rattan sapiyay or the mosquito
screen as dividers or headboards. Bundles of rice stalks are placed under woven mats to serve as beds. A
long pillow stuffed with dried laing or banana leaves is placed at the head and a long mat at the foot of the
To catch falling dust from the roof, a taritib or canopy is hung above the bed which can also be
covered with curtains decorated with appliqu. Some use kapok but others use the cottony flowers of masaw
seeds for their pillows and mattresses. The bed is sometimes fenced for the protection of little children.
If there is baby, his cradle is hung from a roof beam
on a piece of rope attached to a steel spring. In times past,
the Maranao devised a bamboo frame that functioned like a
colled spring to which the four corners of the malong were
tied with pieces of strong rope hanging from the frame. The
cradle is not swung back and forth, instead the baby is
rocked to sleep with an up-and-down motion, while the
parents rest in bed.
There are shelves along the wall. The Maranao use
small, low, round brass trays as tables. Brass stands and
brass tray cuspidors are well arranged in the room. In the
kitchen are stone stoves, pots and pans, water containers,
the plaited bamboo tapaan on which fish or meat is smoked.
Under the house are farming and fishing equipment, the
plow and harrow, the mortar and pestle, and a big vessel
for storing rice.
The torogan, the ancestral house of the upper-class Maranao, as BaI a labi Tawano reminisces, is
now only a precious reminder of bygone days when carving was an art exclusive to sultans and young
daughters were jewels to be hidden in towers and secret rooms.
In 1980 the torogan of Datu Pimbarat at Amito, Marantao, Marawi City was still standing badly in
need of repair, and looking not even a skeleton of its former glory. Built between 1886 and 1887 by the
people of the community and the slaves of the datu, the house still showed its beautifully decorated
panolong and the multi-colored okir carvings on the frontal walls and sidings. Datu Ramber of Bacayawan,
Lanao del Sur made all the carvings.
The roof the torogan was first made of cogon grass, but during the American regime the son of Datu
Pimbarat changed it to G.I. sheets. Although every torogan
is simply one wide open place without rooms, the younger
datu built a gibon or bedroom for one remaining daughter
when his three others married and later moved out of the
The gibon, roughly five by 10 meters, had one entrance
at the front and an exit at the back near the kitchen.
Though it was not a permanent place for the daughter and
her ladies it served as a hiding place when there were
many people in the house the whole room was decorated
with chests and brass urns, and a canopy, embroidered
sequins in okir design, hung above the mattress, bed and
pillows with Maranao libot or appliqu.
Datu Pimbarats grandfather had another wife who
did not live with him in the torogan but in Bobo, Piagapo,
Lanao del Sur, where he had met her while supervising his
slaves at work.
He developed Bobo into a community and formed a
ndatoan there and people paid tribute to him. The

grandfather had 47 slaves who lived with him in the torogan to work in the field, fish in the lake or do
oddjobs in and around the torogan.
In housebuilding, bunga is used for posts, barimbingan for flooring, and gisuk for walls, to gather the
woods all cooperate and assemble in the site at the sounding of the gongs. Work usually starts on a
Saturday, after the early morning prayer, and the woods are cut and floated on the lake.
The center post or tapuwilih is put up first and then the four big tukud or corner posts. Coins of any
amount are planted with the center post for good luck and insurance towards a better financial condition. All
the posts stand on stones so that when there is an earthquake they rock with the stones and do not break.
Around the posts tapuwilih paliyas, dunngaw or sapar are planted as a symbol of survival.
To the Maranao, the torogan is a symbol of rank, status and power. It is built for the sultan or the datu
whose sovereignty in the sultanate covers the pegawidan or royalty, the pegawid or the governed, and the
oripen bisaya or his slaves. His rule over the ndatoan being such, he builds the torogan not only as a
communal house for himself and his closest relatives but as a multi-purpose building for the community. This
is where he holds his conferences with his followers, sakop, settles family disputes, gathers the clan on the
death of a loved kin and celebrates weddings and special festivities such as the coronation of a datu or a bai
a labi, a lady sultan.
Aside from their mosques, the Maranao have the traditional lawig small house and the mala-a-walai
large house but the torogan clearly stands out among them because the end floor beams in front and at the
sides of the torogan protrude and flare upward into sculptured wings of wood with elaborate designs on them.
These end-beams are called panolong or boat-prows and the wings carry fern-like, snake motifs ornately
incised into the wood. According to one informant, the Maranao believe that the naga or sacred snakes
should greet the rising sun.
The floor beams are supported by as many as 25 thick posts, some of which are actual trunks of big
trees or large and rounded balusters that are not buried into the ground but remain free standing on large
The Maranao house has a high and steep roof
similar to that of the Malacca house or the Batak and
Minangkabau houses in Sumatra. The carabao horn
decoration on the roof the rumah adat house in Batak is
identical to the Maranao diongal decoration found atop of
the truss of the torogan.
The wooden uprights behind each panolong, the
floor panels and wall sidings of the windows are also
decorated with okir carvings painted in different colors.
Windows are narrow horizontal slits stretching some two
meters long and 15.4 centimeters wide between the
panolong. Three round geometric designs are painted on
the upper wall panels.
Inside the torogan the center beam known as the tinai a walai or intestine of the house holds up the
king posts of the roof and stretches from one end of the house to the other. This beam is heavily carved and
completely polychromed. What serves as the ceiling of the torogan is a cloth that hangs from the rafters and
absorbs the heat from the roof.
As a multi-family dwelling, the torogan has no permanent partitions. The several families occupying it
simply divide the entire floor into sleeping areas, each area provided with mats, quilts, pads, pillows, and
cloth partitions. This sleeping area becomes by day an all-purpose living area, where the families eat or the
women weave cloth for garments or the men create designs on wax molds for their brasswork. In some
houses, intricately carved wooden chests are used as dividers placed side by side with the thick native-style
mattress spread widely and covered with either a dampas mat or a woven cloth. This is also seen in the
torogan. The sultans panggao or ceremonial elevated bed 3.15 meters long by 2.67 meters die and 57
centimeters from the floor is at the place of honor and away from the entrance of the house, with the other
families protectively surrounding him. Over the bed a richly woven canopy hangs from the ceiling in a carved

frame. The beds wooden frame and legs are finely carved in okir designs. The slaves sleep either near the
kitchen or under the torogan.
Aside from the gibon built near the sleeping area of the
sultan, one sometimes finds a lamin or tower constructed
atop the torogan-to hide the sultans daughter during
conferences, celebrations and gatherings. This is one way
of protecting her modesty, virtue and virginity and chastity
by not exposing her in public. In fact, there are cases when
the sultans daughter is locked up in the lamin from the time
of puberty until she gets married. But the presence of a
lamin is also one way to announce the presence of a royal
lady in the community. The mythical bird, sarimanok,
perches on top of the roof.
The walls of the torogan are decorated with the
lalansay or a screen embroidered with sequins and beads.
Sometimes the elevated brass tray is also hung along the
walls together with other brass vessels arranged beneath it.
Since there is no living room set or other furniture, guests
are received and fed where the beds are.

Before the advent of western and/ or modern influences, a Maranao girl belonging to a noble family
was very closely watched by her parents and other close relatives so as not to expose her to the public. This
practice comes from the traditional high regard for the virtues of modesty and virginity, and also to preserve
the integrity, nobility and royalty of the family concerned. This practice is also the Maranaos way of showing
their love, affection, and respect for the sultans daughter, though nowadays the practice is no longer extant
due to foreign influences.
The Lamin (ladys dormitory tower) is constructed atop the torogan to hide the princess and her
ladies. Its entrance is always located near the sultans bed. The presence of a lamin I one way of
announcing the presence of a royal lady in the community. Being a symbol of the royal status of the Sultan
or the datus daughter and her family, the lamin is designs carved on wall sidings and sometimes
pananaroons (love verses) are also carved on wood and placed in such a way as to be seen by visitors.
Aside from these wood carvings, cloth decorations called mamandiyang (intricately embroidered with
sequins in okir designs) are hung on the walls, to add to the beautification of the lamin.
Inside the lamin is a well-decorated bed. The bed consists of a lapa (big mattress) and pillows all
decorated with libot (Maranao appliqu). Two or more chests are placed to serve as headboards of the bed.
They are provided with stands so as to be higher than the mattress and the pillows. Between the chests and
the pillows hangs the cloth called somandig, which is also beautifully embroidered with sequins and
sometimes made of libot (Maranao appliqu). A kolambo (canopy) embroidered with beads and sequins
hangs above the bed.
A lamin is not permanent place for a liyamin (the lady) and her manga ragas (ladies in waiting). It is
ins most cases a place where the liyamin hides herself during times when the sultan or datu calls for
conferences, meetings, and other important gatherings like weddings and death celebrations in the torogan.
Aside from a lamin there is also constructed within the torogan a room called gibon. The gibon is a more or
less permanent place for the liyamin and the maga ragas. It is usually built near the sleeping area of the
sultan and his lady. Like the lamin, a gibon is also decorated with Maranao okir and other richly embroidered
cloth. The only difference between the two is that a lamin is a structure built to stand out from the torogan
while a gibon is a
Room within a torogan. In most cases a lamin is decorated with a sarimanok on top of the roof.

Like customary law which, in a Malay village, keeps the peoples customs and traditions, the
Maranao torogan gathers all the elements that make up the okir or what is popularly known as Muslim
Filipino art.
David Baradas, anthropologist, claims that the
torogan is the only structure permitted to make use of the
okir motif. However, since no sanction prohibits the use of
this motif on other objects in the culture, the Maranao
artisans have taken the opportunity of carving all the
available permutations of the okir into their musical
instruments and everyday objects..
Baradas has traced evidences of an indigenous
development of the okir in some houses in Molundo,
Pagalongan, and Bubong all in the basak area of the lake
region of Lanao. These houses have nothing but geometric
motifs and patterns all over and differ markedly from the
torogan both in lines and in construction. And so he contends that these structures with these particular
motifs are the forerunners of the torogan.
Strangely enough the quasi-geometric variety of okir that Baradas presents as pre-torogan or nonMaranao-ish is strongly reminiscent of the highly individualistic okir designs of the Badjao, the boat people
considered as a Muslim minority group though not yet thoroughly islamized.