Arts and Crafts

Mindoro Arts and Crafts

Mangyan Iraya Tribe weaving Nito Plates

While it does not have the colorful tribes of Africa nor the modern bustling
metropolitan allure of Singapore, the Philippines, in particular Puerto Galera, has
tropical forests at their most natural, an indigenous tribal culture at its best along with
modern beaches and resorts and it is visited with great enthusiasm by local and
foreign tourists alike.
Mangyan Basket Weaver
In addition to some great beaches and superb coastal cuisine, Puerto Galera’s other
interesting attractions include a day trip to the Mangyan Village. The Iraya Mangyan
Village is located at the foot of Mt. Malasimbo in Barangay Talipanan about 9
kilometers from the town center.
This village was founded by philanthropist Jaime Zobel de Ayala and his wife Donya
Bea in the 90s, and today it provides shelter and sustenance to many Iraya-Mangyan
families who have been re-settled here (“Mangyan” is a collective name for the native
people of Mindoro, the 7th largest island in the Philippines).
Iraya Mangyan weavers at work
Spending a relaxed afternoon with the Iraya tribal people at the Mangyan Village is
both refreshing and stimulating. It can give you a chance to experience first-hand what
life in the village is like, as well as see (and buy) their traditional handicrafts and art,
which is one of their sources of income.

Mangyan Handicraft Display Center

Inside the village, a huge traditional hut serves as a gallery of finished woven
handicrafts which are ready for delivery to its prospective clients while others are
exported to other countries.
Mangyan Handicrafts
The village itself is a paradox with its simple modernity. Tribal women sit under a
thatched roof, weaving local ‘nito’ vines or native vines into baskets, beer bottle
holders and place mats amongst other eco friendly products, plus a construction site
building a computer centre for teaching Mangyan children.
Mangyan Kid from Iraya Tribe
This is not an unusual sight here, and you’ll also find that Mangyans make boxes of
all shapes and sizes, place mats, plates, trays, trinkets, bowls and baskets of all sizes
all beautifully woven by hand-interweaving colorful vines to make traditional designs.
The indigenous arts and crafts of the Mangyans are also transported for sale to two
stores opened by the Ayalas at Makati City.
Nito Weave Decorative Jars
Mangyan art and heritage, including their written language of the Hanunuo and Buhid
Mangyan – The Ambahan written in the Surat Mangay – have almost died out. These
are the last remnants of their pre colonial traditions and handicrafts, which makes this
experience even more unique for anyone who appreciates history. And at the same
time, while the traditions are dying here, theproducts of the tribes’ work can often be
found in many countries in Asia in particular India, Bangkok and Singapore.

While it is a very unique type of shopping trip compared to the one we would usually
make to collect souvenirs from our vacation for family and friends back home, it was
simply refreshing to see a community of indigenous people making a mark for
themselves with their handicrafts. It’s a rare thing in life, and as our civilization
progresses, it will sadly become even rarer and more unique.

Mangyan Traditional House

Like most indigenous people in other parts of the globe, the tribesmen are usually
taken for granted and not given equal opportunity but in Mangyan Village, they are
recognized as an important part of the community. Aside from introducing them to
modern technology, the village was also built to help in the preservation of Manyan’s
language, writing, songs, poems, intricate weaving and art.
It’s definitely a good idea to experience it while you can, because a few decades down
the road, who knows what kind of situation we’ll be in, and how much of that will be
left for people like us to explore.

HANUNUO
The Hanunoo Mangyan have preserved a great part of their beliefs and culture despite
the unavoidable onslaught of the lowland culture brought by the lowland traders,
religious missionaries, private organizations, and government workers. Perhaps it is
the direct result of their retreat to the mountains in the face of the grabbing of their
ancestral lands.

Their way of dressing (rutay Mangyan) distinguish the Hanunoo from other
indigenous
groups as well as from the lowlanders (Padilla 1991). The male uses g-string balled
ba-ag for the lower part, and for the upper part the sleeved balukas, which reaches the
navel. The females use the ramit or dress. There are two kinds of covering for the
upper part of the body—the sleeved lambong and the sleeveless subon. These articles
of clothing are made from cotton, which they plant, and color with an indigo dye from
the plant named tagom. They are woven by the women with a backstrap loom, and
are normally embroidered with red and white crosslike designs called pakudos.
Miyamoto (1988:29) believes that the pakudos motif might also be explained by the
sacred number four and the mandala symbol often seen in Southeast Asian art.

Hanunoo men and women wear the hagkus or willed rattan belt with a pocket.
Women wear the hulon, a belt made from the nito, around their waist. They wear
their hair long, and sometimes use a headband made of beads or buri and nito.
Hanunoo Mangyan of all ages and both sexes are fond of wearing necklaces and
bracelets made from beads. These beads are used not only for decoration but also for
magical, religious, and judiciary purposes. They are used as adornments by lovers,
in curing a sick person (white beads only), in rituals presided over by the pandaniwan,
and for paying fines, the quantity depending on the severeness of a wrongdoing.

Among the Iraya, males wear bahag or loincloth fashioned from tree bark, the kaitong
or belt, and the talawak or headband. The females wear the tapis or skirtlike covering
made from bark, the lingob or belt, and the sagpan or pamanpan to cover the breast.
They wear necklaces called kudyasan, made from tigbi seeds, and the panalingnaw or
earrings.

Some Ratagnon males still wear the traditional loincloth, and the women wear a
wraparound cotton cloth from the waistline to the knees. They weave a breast
covering from nito or vine. The males wear a jacket with simple embroidery during
gala festivities and carry flint, tinder, and other paraphernalia for making fire. They
also carry betel chew and its ingredients in bamboo containers. Strings of beads or
copper wire may adorn their necks. Both men and women wear coils of red-dyed
rattan at the waistline.

Among the Hanunoo, men forge and repair blades for knives, axes, bolo or long knife,
spears, and other bladed instruments. Women traditionally spin, dye, and weave
cotton cloth for clothing and blankets. Tailoring and the embroidery of garments is
usually women’s work, while men carve the handles and scabbards. Woven basketry
is mainly women’s work, but sewn goods, twisted cordage, and other goods are
crafted
by both sexes.

Basket making is well developed among the northern Iraya and southern Hanunoo
groups. Lane (1986:141-144) describes the various kinds of Mangyan baskets. The
Iraya have the hexagonal household basket, which is always made in small sizes, from
18-20 centimeters in diameter. The materials used consists of soft and narrow strips
ofthe buri palm leaf, which are then overlaid with nito strips. Another Iraya basket is
the open grain basket made from bamboo strips, which are first blackened and dried.
Variations in the weaving process produce the many designs of the basket.

The Hanunoo baskets are small, fine, and leatherlike in texture. Various designs such
as the pakudos or cross pattern are created with split nito or red-dyed buri laid over
strips of buri. The base of the basket is square but the mouth is round. Other types
of Hanunoo basketry include purses and betel-nut carriers which come in round,
polygonal, or other shapes. The covers fit snugly on the container.

Palawan Arts and Crafts

The traditional costumes of the Tagbanua were fashioned from the bark of
trees, particularly the salugin. The preparation of this bark was unique. After being
felled, the tree would be cut around the trunk, the outer bark stripped off to expose
the inner layer. This layer would be beaten with a wooden mallet, until it was soft
and pliant enough to hang loose from the bole. This was then washed in the river
and dried out under the sun. No dye was applied to it, and no decorations either.
The Tagbanua have always depended on this inner tree bark because back-loom
weaving is unknown to them, as with all Palawan groups. In the past, menfolk wore
simple loincloths (G-strings), supported by a woven rattan waistband called
ambalad, while the women wore only brief wraparound skirts made from bark.
The Tagbanua later came to adopt some articles of Muslim clothing. At present, while
many Tagbanua still wear their traditional apparel, Western-type clothing has found
its way among the people.

The Tagbanua have had more aesthetically delicate creations in terms of

body accessories. In the past, when both men and women wore their hair long, they
filed and blackened their teeth, and carved earplugs from the hardwood
bantilinaw. These ornately designed plugs were inlaid with mother-of-pearl in
geometric patterns. The Tagbanua also carved wooden combs and bracelets. They
strung bead necklaces to be used in covering women’s necks. Anklets of copper and
brass wire were also crafted and worn by women. The earlobe plugs, combs and
bracelets, necklaces and anklets have now become quite rare.

Baskets and wood carvings are the more notable products of Tagbanua artistic crafts
today. They excel in the number of designs which they apply to their tingkop (harvest
baskets) made of hard-strip bamboo. These baskets are occasionally made of
blackened and natural bamboo, which make the designs stand out. Sometimes, only
the natural color of bamboo is used, and the design is created by an extremely subtle
changing of the under-over pattern of the bamboo strips. The cone-shaped colander
type of basket is another fine example of Tagbanua skilled artistry. Using black and
natural color designs outside, the center of the cone has the bamboo strips skived
slightly smaller, creating even holes for the screen. The funnel effect is accomplished
through a close weaving of the bamboo strips towards the top. (Lane 1986:148)

The soft rice baskets, called bayong-bayong, are made with different unusual
shapes. These have generally square bases and round tops. To produce interesting
block and V-shapes, the plain buri sides are superimposed with colored buri. Color is
woven into the Tagbanua basket with the use of dyed palm leaves. Among the colors
used are red, blue, violet, grey, black, and green. There are at least three common
designs for hand baskets, which are used as tobacco containers (De los Reyes
1977:215).
Blackened wood carvings of animals, with simple etched or incised features
exposing the original white grain of the wood, are the most well-known examples of
Tagbanua wood carving or sculpture. Long since available in the market as tourist
commodities, these wood carvings traditionally formed part of the ritual offerings.

The process begins with the cutting of the branches of the alimutyugan tree.
This wood, soft and white, is cut into foot lengths, split in half, and debarked.
Rough blocks are made with the bolo called barong. For carving the actual shape and
the fine details of the object, a small curved knife called pisay is used. The
sculpting done, the Tagbanua artist then uses a sandpaper leaf called agupi or isis
to smoothen out the surface, after which sweet potato, yam, or cassava leaves
are rubbed all over it, giving it a greenish color because of the leaf juice. For
blackening, a piece of the almaciga resin is burned on the ground, and the object is
passed over the burning resin to blacken it thoroughly with soot. The blackened object
is given a second scrubbing with the leaves, then passed over the smoke again,
this process being repeated until the black coloring no longer comes off despite
rubbing.
Finally, incisions, etchings, and scrapings, are made on the carving, using the
knife. The strokes are swift and sure: eyes, polka dot designs, V-marks, white
triangles, plant and leaf motifs, lines and geometric shapes, and other designs
complete on the Tagbanua carving.

Some of the objects carved are mammanuk (rooster), a ritual bowl, kiruman
(turtle), kararaga (a native bird), dugyan (a small ground animal), lizards, and wild
pigs. Carved animals are used with rice, betel nut, and other offerings to attract the
deities and spirit-relatives in the pagdiwata rituals. The turtle, for instance, floats on
grains of palay in an ancient Ming trade bowl. Lizards, turtles, and wild pigs, when
not used as ritual objects, become toys for children.

MIndoro Mangyan Hanunuo writing script

The island of Mindoro in the Philipine archipelago is home to the Mangyans, an umbrella term of a number
of indigenous tribes loosely related by language, culture, and religion. Unlike other native people in the
Philipines that have abandoned their native scripts for the Roman alphabet after Spanish colonization, the
Mangyan tribes such as the Buhid and Hanunóo have maintained their ancient script.
The Mangyan script is a distant descendent of the Brahmi script through the Kawi of Indonesia. As such,
every letter is in fact a syllabic sign carrying the default vowel of /a/. To represent another vowel other than
/a/, diacritical marks called kulit are used. The kulit to denote the vowel /i/ is usually a horizontal line above
the letter, and the kulit for /u/ is often a line under or to the lower right of the letter, although sometimes the
mark joins the letter itself and changes the overall look of the combination.
One interesting trait of Mangyan is the difference between writing and reading. While it is written from left
to right, during reading the text is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise so that it is read from bottom to top.
The following table is the Mangyan syllabic alphabet, as used for writing (as opposed to reading). There is
no documented order of letters for Mangyan (like the order of the English alphabet), so I have arranged the
letters in the traditional Indian order.
While it is possible to have consonants at the end of a syllable in Mangyan languages, the Mangyan script
does not represent them at all. These syllable-ending consonants are simply left unwritten. Similarly, the
semivowels forming part of a diphthong are also omitted from writing. There is also no separation or marker
between words, making the text appears like one continuous block of letters. These factors cause
occasional ambiguity in the reading of words, and the reader must rely on context to clarify what is written.

The Mangyan script is primarily used for recreation and personal correspondences, especially in the form
of poetry and love songs. Literacy is actually quite high even among the youth, thus there is no danger of
the Mangyan script dying out in the immediate future.
Mangyan arts and crafts
source: http://mangyan.org/

For the Mangyans, craft has always been a product of their way of life and an extension of
their customs and traditions. Today, this distinct expression of artistry and skill not only
keeps the Mangyan culture and heritage alive, but also helps raise supplementary income
for their education and health care.

The handicrafts sourced by the MHC are handmade by Mangyan people in the mountainous
regions of Mindoro:

 the woven textiles by Hanunuo-Mangyan mothers of Mansalay and Bulalacao

 the rattan baskets by the Alangan Mangyans of Naujan
 the nito baskets by the Iraya Mangyans of Puerto Galera and San Teodoro
 the beaded items by the Alangan and Hanunuo Mangyans.
Items that meet the MHC's quality standards are sold at a price set by the Mangyan
producers, ensuring they are fairly paid for their work. Any profits go towards
theMHC's cultural program, including scholarships for Mangyan students.
Hanunuo-Mangyan women hand-stitch and hand-embroider their traditional square-necked
blouse (lambong). It takes over a week to embroider the intricate pakudos design.
Embroidery was traditionally the shortest part of the process as the Hanunuo Mangyans
used to plant, harvest, separate, dry, spin, and then weave the cotton fibers. Today,
however, the fabric is purchased in the market and then embroidered.

The embroidered pakudos is always of two colors. On a white blouse, it is predominantly red
and is highlighted by a fine black or dark blue outline. On a blue blouse, it is also
predominantly red but the outline stitchery is white. The design is started from the center
with only hand measurements and the warp and weft threads as guide.
Hanunuo-Mangyan women hand-stitch and hand-embroider the traditional men's open-
fronted shirt (balukas). It takes over a week to embroider the intricate pakudos design.
Embroidery was traditionally the shortest part of the process as the Hanunuo Mangyans
used to plant, harvest, separate, dry, spin, and then weave the cotton fibers. Today,
however, the fabric is purchased in the market and then embroidered.

The embroidered pakudos is always of two colors. On a white blouse, it is predominantly red
and is highlighted by a fine black or dark blue outline. On a blue blouse, it is also
predominantly red but the outline stitchery is white. The design is started from the center
with only hand measurements and the warp and weft threads as guide.
The ramit is a textile made by the Buhid and Hanunuo Mangyans. It is woven on a
backstrap loom called harablon and features intricate geometric patterns. In the past, it was
made from homespun cotton which was then indigo-dyed. Today, the thread used for
making the ramit is purchased from local stores. It takes one week to weave a 23-inch x
108-inch ramit.
Traditionally worn as a skirt or used as a blanket for carrying children, it now finds other
uses as a table runner, wall hanging, bag or placemat.
The Mangyans weave intricate baskets of various sizes and designs.
Due to the Mangyans' conscious management of their natural resources, production of
handicrafts made from forest materials like nito and rattan is of modest volume
 the beaded items by the Alangan and Hanunuo Mangyans.