Making weaves in Mindanao

The malong is a tabular dress, skirt, blanket, baby hammock, a market shopper’s bag. It’s a cover over the head for sunny or rainy days, a decorative fabric to hang as canopy. A traditional present – from bride to groom or groom to bride or mother-in-law to daughter-in-law – to commemorate a wedding. A status symbol denoting royalty, an article to sell to pay for Hadj expenses. A museum piece to be admired, a weaver’s masterpiece. It is an avenue for knowledge on sacred symbols, a table cloth, a bedspread, a curtain for dressing modestly behind it, a sheet for a man and a woman to bond for themselves as one. It is a veil for the demure or coquettish females or fugitives.

However one uses it, it is the traditional dress of the Muslims of Southern Philippines and throughout Southeast Asia. If the malong is so much in demand now with the advent of ethnic styles, why are the textiles of Southern Mindanao so neglected? Lourdes Veloso Mastura herself wonders, "Might it be that the inland parts of Mindanao are too remote, too warlike, or too poor to attract the interest of people from other places?"

The Museum Volunteers of the Philippines (MVP), an 18-year-old organization founded by Margaretha Gloor with a group of friends (one of them Diane Umemoto) and more than 200 members from 36 nations, saw it timely to sponsor Lourdes Veloso Mastura’s malong collection in keeping with the MVP’s ideal of "What binds us together is a common interest in learning about the country we live in, sharing our thoughts, and making friends with people who enjoy the same things."

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How brilliant of Lourdes to have collected malongs of bygone years which are now museum pieces! Yet, she says regretfully, "Even as we call attention to the need to recognize these outstanding textiles, we must understand that recognition can bring with us its own difficulties. On the bright side, the textile traditions of places like Cotabato will be lifted from obscurity and made part of a broader human heritage of cultural and artistic achievement...to be studied, preserved and used as vehicles for public education. But there is a dark side. Weavers may remain anonymous and often desperately poor, while large profits are enjoyed by those taking their work to the outside world. The pressure to produce quickly for cash income may force compromises in quality."

Many elderly weavers in Cotabato have approached Lourdes to say how much they appreciate her interest in their culture and it has sparked a renewed awareness of and pride for the value of this tradition and a respect for the past. This touched Lourdes’ heart, who’s a Christian from Leyte turned Muslim through her marriage to Datu Michael Mastura. All this led in 1987 to the establishment of a facility where 80 weavers work on a cooperative basis.

Here are the types of malongs in the Mastura collection displayed recently at the Cultural Center, a project of the Museum Volunteers of the Philippines.

• Binatudtu Rainbow. During the warfare of the 1970s, many inhabitants of Cotabato fled north of the Maranao area of Lake Lanao. In the early 1980s Lourdes Mastura and some MVP friends, including Betty Frank and Carol Stratton, were at Lake Lanao when an elderly woman approached Lourdes and said, "You are from Cotabato – I have something for you. Wait." Then she handed Lourdes a malong, saying, "I, too, am from Cotabato, but I had to leave quickly – this is one of the few things I was able to take with me. It has been in my family many years and it too is from Cotabato and it wants to go home. Please take it home." Its colored stripes blending gently one into the next like a rainbow as it emerges from the clouds to shine in front of the sun, the malong is once again home in Cotabato.

• Taruk. This was the largest malong on exhibit, woven for a sultan in the Taruk pattern when the color orange was available only to the royalty.

• Malcabemban. Held woven colors when they were symbolic. Yellow and orange were indicative of royalty and high social status. Green, which signified peace, tranquillity and stability, was worn by individuals secure in their place in society. White, the color of purity, was reserved for sadness and mourning. Red spoke of bravery and violence. Black, still a favorite color among Muslim women of royal descent, implied purity and dignity.

• Makabimban. The colors of the stripes created in the horizontal weft dominate the fabric, while the vertical warp stripes make up the background.

A plaid or checkered malong may have a gunday panel with finely alternating weft stripes often composed of no more than two or four threads. Silk malongs with such panels are heirlooms, worn only on festive occasions, never to market or a funeral lest they be stained. They were once used by men. Women now wear them, but while men wear the panel at the back, women wear it on either side or at the back. It is never worn in front.

• Guirawadi. Patterns like this one are woven exclusively for a particular clan to be worn only by its members. They may be worn on festive occasions, such as weddings or circumcisions. A malong may indicate the status of an individual. It can be worn rolled at the waist because the greater the amount of fabric displayed, the higher the rank of the owner.

• Marabimban. The harmonious blending of the red, green and blue shades used to highlight the yellow stripes indicate the weaver’s sensitivity to the nuances of color. The name of the pattern, Marabimban, alludes to an "object of envy."

• Kasron. The extra white threads in the gunday panel of a malong indicate an additional mark of prestige.

• Panigabi (Taro). This design is derived from the gabi, the taro plant, therefore the green of its leaves, and pani, the color of the tuberous root and the yam it produces.

• Panigabi Sain or Turnasol technique. In a technique called sain or turnasol, weavers use warp and weft threads of contrasting colors often alternating two colors of warp with a third color of weft. The number of threads of each color determines both the sheen and the dominant color. The Maguindanao consider lavender and black formal colors.

• Sinonbengan. The Malay consider the number four to be lucky – a belief largely shared by the Maguindanao. The repeat pattern of pat ti pat, symbol for the number "four," displayed within a large square, reflects this thought.

• Matampunay. In this weave, accomplished by only the most highly skilled weavers, additional or supplementary white weft threads have been woven at the intersections where the warp and weft stripes meet to form tiny stylized cross designs somewhat resembling eyes. Interestingly, the local name for this design is matampunay or mata meaning "eyes."

• Sinukipan. The colors and size of this malong on display told us it was woven for an individual of great importance. Although the eight-pointed star (binitoon) tends to be closely associated with Islamic art, it predates Islam in the Philippines where it was a prevalent design in various indigenous communities. The band of isosceles triangles along the border is called a tumpal.

• Binaludan na Lipong was one of the most exceptional pieces in the exhibition both for weaving technique and age. The overall repeat (lipong), weft ikat pattern was woven with the sain or turnasol technique incorporating warp and weft threads of varied colors. As the fabrics move it was sometimes beige, brown, ecru and sometimes magenta, mauve or pink. The weaver was undoubtedly an artist of great ability who used her loom for a palette.The design is a variation of the lozenge or diamond motif, tiungkup. Tiungkup translates roughly as "that which is not square." For this malong, the mathematical calculations and complicated patterns for the arabesque designs in weft ikat existed only in the head of the weaver who produced it.

• Binaludan na Ongkop. This malong is woven from silk. The ikat designs were those of a papanok (bird), and a broa (a baked delicacy).

• Binaludan na Binabaos. Presented the ikat patterns in stripes and/or bands, with a variety of the lozenge or diamond design called binabaos.

• Binaludan na Pinalupaan was the use of the two rare colors, orange and turquoise, together. With the amount of yarn material used this malong was woven for a person of high rank. This weft ikat design, Pinalupaan, was woven on bands of chocolate brown. Pinalupaan literally translates to "buried in mud." The eight-pointed star (binitoon) was represented in a stylized version.

• Seko Karawang. This design means right elbow. The term seko may, however, have a much older meaning implying a deviation from a vertical or horizontal line, or referring to a "triangle" shape. The design Binaludan na Seko Andong refers to the left elbow. The Sambit represents elements of nature in its design such as lighting (sambit), reminiscent of a lightning bolt or slashes through the sky.

• Andon (Patola). The Patola cloth was woven by high caste weavers in Gujerat, Northern India, and exported to the Indonesian archipelago in the 15th and 16th centuries where it enjoyed royal and court usage. From there it made its way to the Southern Philippines. Maranao weavers adopted and adapted the patola patterns to create their most prestigious of malongs, the andon, a textile considered appropriate wear only for women. Like her Maguindanao sister, the Maranao weaver of these complicated designs held her own mathematical calculations and techniques.

• Binaludan na Andon Patola. This malong required four separate dye operations to create the design, which was the stylized tree of life. Done in Maranao silk, it is heavier than the Maguindanao version as the higher Lake Lanao area is cooler than Cotabato.

• Landap. Second only to the andon in status is the silk malong Landap – a malong constructed from two or more large pieces of fabric. The Landap is created in two basic colors executed in plain weave, and held together by panels worked in a tapestry weave. The wide vertical band, langkit, and two narrower horizontal bands, tobrian, may be attached to the fabric by sewing or by embroidery. The Langkit panel is most frequently woven with intricate designs of three or four colors and the motif features stylized renditions of scrolls, leaves, vines and floral motifs.

• "Butterfly." Cloth was woven into the fabric of Mindanao society. It was a connection to the social and the ceremonial life. When factory-produced textiles were introduced, many weaves turned their skills exclusively to ceremonial cloths, and silk malongs such as this one, with its repeat "butterfly" motif that looked more like a four-petaled flower.

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Every malong has introduced me to a tale. I hope it has taught you a little of the history of Mindanao.

How can anyone not fall in love with a malong? Or with a man who wears one, just like Lourdes who fell in love with Datu Mike?