previous sub-section
Chapter 2 People and Territory in Cotabato
next sub-section

The Iranun

Writing in the mid-nineteenth century, the Spanish chronicler Francisco Gainza described a population of skilled and fiercely independent sea raiders living along the eastern shore of Ilana Bay who called themselves "Iranun."

[T]his large population, designated by some geographers with the name of the Illana [Iranun] Confederation, in reality does not form a single political body except to defend its independence when it is found threatened . . . They live loaded with weapons; they reside in dwellings artfully encircled by barricades . . . and they maintain their bellicose spirit by continuously engaging in robbery and theft. Through piracy they strive to gather slaves for aggrandizement and to provide their subsistence . . .


31

In short, this particular society can only be considered a great lair of robbers, or a nursery for destructive and ferocious men. (Quoted in Bernaldez 1857, 46–47)

The Iranun today are a population whose size has never been accurately estimated by a government agency but who probably number somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 individuals.[6] Most Iranun continue to reside along the eastern shore of Ilana Bay, although some have also long inhabited the hill country lying between the coast and the southern edge of the Lanao Plateau. The Iranun language is closely related to the languages spoken by the Iranun's more populous Muslim neighbors, the Magindanaon and the Maranao of the Lanao Plateau.[7] The Iranun share with their neighbors the profession of Islam, as well as a number of other cultural institutions. There has long been intermarriage between the Iranun, Magindanaon, and Maranao, and the percentage of intergroup marriages has increased since midcentury.

As Gainza's account indicates, the Iranun living at the coast once practiced a distinctive maritime adaptation. For at least 150 years prior to the inception of American colonial rule at the turn of the century, they specialized as seagoing marauders. The Iranun raided throughout island Southeast Asia, from the Celebes in the south to Luzon in the north and as far west as the Straits of Malacca, attacking merchant shipping and coastal settlements in search of slaves and plunder.[8] They continue their seafaring ways today, but now as fishermen and long-distance traders.[9]


previous sub-section
Chapter 2 People and Territory in Cotabato
next sub-section