Agung [ageng, agong, egong, egung, gong].

Suspended bossed gong of Mindanao, Sulu, Palawan, Mindoro, Sarawak, Sabah, Brunei, peninsular Malaysia, Kalimantan and other parts of Indonesia. There are various sizes. Larger gongs measure approximately 60 cm in diameter, with a boss about 8 cm high and a rim about 24 cm wide. The degree to which the rim is turned in also varies, as do the instrument’s profile, weight and thickness. The smallest agung are those of the Tiruray people of Mindanao; they have a diameter of about 27 cm and rims about 4 cm wide.

Among several cultural groups in insular South-east Asia instruments of the agung type are important in rituals of possession. The Magindanaon people of Mindanao and the Modang of east Kalimantan use it in curing ceremonies, and in Palawan island it is played in wine-drinking rituals. The Iban of Sarawak use the agung at feasts (gawai) related to rice cultivation, at weddings, at the making of a new house and in curing the sick. In east Kalimantan the gong is a semi-sacred object and a symbol of honour and prestige.

What distinguishes the agung and related gongs from other types is its sound and its musical function, rather than its physical dimensions. Most agung are played on their bosses with a cloth-padded or rubber-bound mallet to produce a long sustained sound which may be damped by the left hand or right knee of the player. The mallet may also strike the face of the instrument and produce a similar sustained effect. The gong may be played alone or as part of two types of ensemble: one with drums, percussion and other suspended gongs, and another with these instruments and a kulintang (gong-chime). The inclusion or not of the kulintang is significant, for the two types of ensemble exist separately in different language and cultural groups. For a list of agung and other suspended gongs played with the kulintang, see Kulintang, §2; ensembles of 22 cultural-linguistic groups without the kulintang are listed in Table 1.

The absence of the kulintang is a common feature of the ensembles listed in Table 1, but the music played by many suspended gongs has its own distinctive quality, characterized more by timbre, rhythm and punctuation than by focussed pitches.

Other ensembles of suspended gongs in the area are distinguished not only from the kulintang ensemble but also from each other according to the number and types of instruments used and the performing practices employed. The small sounds of the five Tiruray agung (Table 1, 22) contrast with the heavy sounds of larger agung typical of the whole area of Mindanao and Borneo.

Other suspended gongs not related semantically to the agung nevertheless share its musical function in ensembles in South-east Asia. Some of these are listed in the second column of Table 1; for some others, see Kulintang, Table 1. Although they share the function of the agung, they also contribute to the variety among suspended gong ensembles which parallels the linguistic variety of the region.

For illustration see Philippines, fig.10.

For bibliography see Kulintang.

JOSÉ MACEDA