I wish that the Philippine representative to beauty pageant could wear this type of clothes that the T-bolis are wearing!
Feeling ethnic ArticleMy two daughters both decided to wear T’boli ethnic weave to school and came home with prizes. Pamela won the best costume award in their school’s United Nation’s Day. Patricia was the best in Filipiniana dress during their Linggo ng Wika celebration. The judges recognized their ethnic beauty and the pride they wore with their costumes. They both felt pretty in their lovely dresses.Well, they also got their first lessons in turning ethnic weave into mainstream fashion. Perhaps they would eventually learn to wear it as casually as they would wear their jeans.
T’boli dreamingInterest is stirring in me over the T’boli costume. Though a vanishing image, the T’boli women wearing full traditional costume look stunning. They are petite and regal in frame, wrapped in many-colored sarongs and delicately embroidered blouses. Women and girls adorn themselves with foot-long earrings, layers of necklaces, and hats as large as colorful umbrellas. They have stacks of anklets and bracelets–red, blue, black and white, green, turquoise.
The sluong knibang is a shade hat they wear during festivals. The cloth can be made in different designs but always in the traditional T’boli colors of red, white and black. These colors predominate in the textile art of other southern Mindanao tribes like the Bagobo, Mandaya and Bilaan.
I have no reference point for these faces born out of a long history of trading between the Philippine islands, Indonesia, China, Africa, Polynesia and Arabia. The words of a local chant come to mind: “The power and the prestige, the garments of our ancestors.”
During their festivals, T’boli women bring out their heirloom clothing–necklaces, bracelets, earrings, the heavy brass belt adorned with bells and carved metal, embroidered tight fitting blouse, eight thick brass anklets and six wrist bracelets, the beaded wooden hairpiece, and a pair of earrings which extended from the earlobe and wrapped around the neck like a collar.
They put all of these on with their daughter’s help. Transforming themselves into veritable temples, they become a visible map of their ancestors, their culture, and nature. With their costumes, they smile proudly. They sometimes lift their skirts and reveal their tattooed calves, which will make them recognizable at death to their ancestors in the other world.
The most valuable piece of T’boli jewelry by far is the lieg kemagi. They can be worth the price of a horse, but even at this price they are rarely sold for fear that the former owner may get sick or be punished with death. Those pieces with several strands of glass beads, brass bells, chains and gold or brass interlocking beads fetch many times their traditional price. The dangling brass chains and bells are worn on the side of the necklace, not at the bottom.
The heaviest piece of jewelry worn and made by the T’boli is a brass belt, the hilot. Some weigh more than three kilograms, looking like girdles of brass chain-link and bells. The T’boli costume is not only a visual delight but also an enchanting experience for audiophiles. The royalty and rich people wear many bracelets or anklets like these up their arms and legs during festivals and the mesmerizing tinkles of the chimes simply announce their presence.
Another common ornament is the swat henafak. It’s a wooden comb with inlaid mirrors with strings of seed beads hanging from it, worn at the back of the head. Three wound brass wire top pieces represent bird wings. The T’boli also make small wooden combs decorated with brass wire wound on parts of it.
T’boli beadworkA common necklace worn by T’boli women is made from glass seed beads and brass bells. The women in the Lake Sebu Market can sometimes be seen wearing a beaded necklace in bandoleer style along with their traditional lieg.
The T’boli also wear beaded belts made of abaca cloth with glass seed beads sewn to it in striking designs and bright colors. These have brass buckles with brass bells suspended on 7.5 to 10 cm beaded strings from the bottom of the belt.
The common T’boli women’s blouse, the k’gal taha soung, is made of a deep blue cloth with yellow, red, green and white embroidery. The T’boli also have beaded blouses, probably an idea borrowed from their B’laan neighbors, who wear skirts decorated with small shells. Women from this culture wear beaded blouses made of thick black polyester-cotton cloth with appliqués of cotton and white glass seed beads. Though they make variations on a theme, no two embroidery designs on the blouses are exactly alike.
Threads of historyThe blouses that the T’Boli women wear are famous for their intricate embroidery and the uniqueness in their design. Over blue or black cotton panels are painstaking needlework or repeating patterns and symbols. They are red, black, white, yellow and green–the colors of the earth and the alchemy of the soul. Space is filled with symbols as if they were writings done with threads and needles. Simple cross-stitches create delightful and integral patterns. All intricate patterns are done in their heads.
Some blouses take months to finish. Some like the ones embroidered with small seashells can take one or two years to complete and may be quite heavy. And they are not cheap. They come with a high price tag that goes with much effort. A good T’boli maiden is expected to make and embroider her own clothes. During an exhibit of T’boli clothes at the National Museum sometime ago, a native maiden told me that “T’boli women must continue to weave, make jewelry, baskets, sing and tell stories.”
The spirit of the weaveThe T’boli people of the Philippines believe that the spirit of the T’nalak, Fu Dalu, is the main source of inspiration for the creation of the fabric. The T’boli consider t’nalak to be the most sacred of weaves and the most sacred object they can produce. Only women are allowed to weave t’nalak, which can only be made in Lake Sebu, their ancestral domain.
T’nalak, the ceremonial clothing of both men and women, is a deep brown abaca cloth tie-dyed with intricate red and beige designs. Natural vegetable dyes are used to stain the fibers before the cloth is woven. The cloth has great significance for the T’boli. It’s one of the traditional properties exchanged at the time of marriage and is used as a covering during birth to ensure a safe delivery. The T’boli believe that cutting the cloth will cause serious illness or death. If it is sold, a brass ring is often attached to appease the spirits.
The process of weaving is painstaking–from choosing the right fibers, to bark stripping, boiling and preparing the fibers, dying, praying and blessing the process. The intricate patterns are not drawn on paper or by computer-aided design. The weaver “dreams” of each single pattern; each design is new. No other person has ever made exactly the same design.
The patterns come in dreams in three ways–from the ancestors, their mothers, or from one’s own dreams. They name their patterns. The channel of the dream must be open. In order to be woven, each new pattern must be dreamed anew. The dream must be insistent.
Sharing the traditionI shared these stories to my two daughters as they got used to wearing the T’boli clothes themselves. They had to wear them alone in school. They tried to look at the designs, the patterns, and the colors. They grew quiet. They nodded and listened intently.
I think I’m beginning to make some connections here. What did we learn from the remote T’boli village we visited? That the forms of culture, stories, houses, clothing, carvings, weavings, songs, dances, tattoos are the visible means of protecting knowledge, without which we would be less than human.
They are a visible map to an invisible world within us; a map that leads to our Filipino soul. If only the channel is left open to dreaming from the Filipino soul within each one of us, we can “dream” about the right formula for a proud Filipino nation.
This is the treasure I brought back home with me from the T’bolis. And my two daughters are proudly wearing it!
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2003/m...030519lif2.html
