Tingguian Weaving Traditions

TINGGUIANS OF NAMARABAR. Tourism itineraries to Abra did not include a trip to its tribal community so I requested our freelance tour guide to veer away from the usual route and take us to the Tingguian village of Namarabar in Peñarrubia. The Tingguian culture dates back to pre-Spanish times but despite of strong external forces encroaching their traditions, they continue to practice their ethnic beliefs and handicrafts.

The Tingguians are also called Itneg, a contraction of the Ilocano words iti uneg, which means interior that refers to the location of their settlement at the heartland of Abra. The Tinggians originally settled near the lowlands of Narvacan and Santa in Ilocos Sur and had constant contact with the Ilocanos but because of the clashes between the natives and Spaniards, they moved out from the war-torn valley into the uplands of the Cordillera.

HIGHLAND HERITAGE. The road to the uplands of Abra bends towards the foothills over alternating paved and dirt tracks with a panorama of undulating rice fields and mountain ranges under low overcast sky. Upon ascending on a clearing, we arrived in the village of Namarabar.

The villagers were curious of our presence until tribal elder Norma Mina Agaid came out to see us. Graceful in her sleeves of heirloom beads, a symbol of prestige equivalent to the tattoos worn by their mountain cousins in Kalinga, life in the village and Tingguian weaving traditions echoes in Nana Norma’s lively storytelling.

NORMA MINA AGAID. We were invited to Nana Norma’s home. We were offered some refreshments. Later, the women folk came in a line through the door behind the house. Each carried piles of woven fabric that they showcased on a long table. Proud of their handiwork, they spread out each fabric to reveal the intricate interlacing threads and figures that form in the weaving patterns.

Nana Norma belongs to a generation of weavers. She learned to dye the threads and to weave distinct patterns into the fabric from her mother as early as eleven years old. Her children learned weaving techniques from her. Life of the womenfolk in Namarabar is oriented towards weaving. They start their day weaving and taking short breaks to have coffee, meals and when it’s time to feed the livestock.

TINGGUIAN WEAVING TRADITIONS. Tingguian weavers practice a ritual before weaving. It involves sacrificing a native pig, dancing and praying to Pinaing, the goddess of weaving  who according to Tingguian folklore, introduced to the Tingguian women the weaving patterns for the pinilian and binakol and the embroidery style called kinamay through dreams.

Pinilian refers to a grid style weaving pattern with motif that form the shape of a deer, an eagle, a lizard, a flower, an eight pointed star, sinang-kabayo (horse), sinan-tao (human figure) and other complex Pinilian motif. These symbols have meanings that were exclusive to the Tingguians. These motifs are believed to provide protection from evil spirits and are symbols of prestige among the tribe. Pinilian fabric is used as a wrap-around skirt, loincloth for men, and headband and belt. Pinilian blankets are also used in important rituals. The Ilocanos learned the pinilian technique from the Tingguians. The weaving patterns used for Abra abel and the psychedelic optical art weave of the binakol today for instance are based from the traditional pinilian patterns.

AM-AMMA. In 1959, Norma wanted to paint but she can’t so she embroidered on abel fabric using the kinamay embroidery the Am-Amma that visualizes the story of their ancestor gods and folk myths. On a spread shows the all-weather Tingguian warriors guarding the Tangadan Tunnel against the invading Ilocanos while the Abrense heroine, Gabriela Silang ride the horse.

The center row illustrates the the ancient method of dyeing cloth using barks and plants and the goddess weaver, Pinaing who introduced through dreams the weaving patterns to the Tingguian women.

EPILOGUE: MANLILIKA NG BAYAN. Abra had its first Manilikha ng Bayan in Apo Teofilo Garcia, the tabungaw hat maker from San Quintin. Maybe this valley of folk artists can have another one. This time a weaver and storyteller from Namarabar.

– Women’s Month 2019

Tabungaw Hat-Maker

HOME ON A HILL. It was a steep drive up from Tangadan Tunnel to barrio San Quintin in Abra. The soil was soggy and roads were slippery from the days of rain. We hiked the muddy path, burdened by our city feet to meet the hat-maker, Teofilo Garcia at his home on a hill.

Apo Teofilo is a local farmer who is famous for crafting the katokong nga tabungaw, the Ilocano for elegant, rain and shine durable hats fashioned from native gourd.

HAT-MAKING TRADITIONS. Handmade head-gears, crafted from materials found in nature and used as practical accessories and protection from sun and rain have been perfected by our ancestral tribes centuries ago. To preserve the integrity of hat-making process, the craft was passed down from generations of hat-makers. The Maranaos and Bagobos were known for carving wooden helmets used for combat. The Maranao hat was topped with a silver turret while the Bagobos decorated theirs with geometric patterns. The Bontocs carved a bowl-shaped helmet with portruding anthropomorphic figures. They also weaved nito into a bachelor’s basket hat called the suklang. The Gaddangs weaved rattan to make a skull cap that was trimmed with colorful beads, pearls and metal while the Ilongots fashioned a head dress from animals they hunt like the hornbill.

The Tausugs and Yakans weaved thin strips of bamboo to make cone and dome-shaped hats with an inner cushioning of the same material, which was separately woven. The Tagalogs and Visayans have their versions of the popular salakot, finely woven from anahaw palm or fashioned from dried tortoise shell, trimmed with silver or gold. Of the same category is the Ilocano takurong nga tabungaw or gourd hat.

TAKURONG NGA TABUNGAW. Apo Teofilo learned making takurong, Ilocano for hat out of tabungaw or native gourd from his grandfather during his teens. The hat-making process begins from the planting of the seeds of the vegetable and knowing when it has grown into its right size for harvest, cutting in halves, drying and letting the ants eat the pulp to lining the edge with woven nito and weaving the built-in inner cushioning with alternating patterns using rattan and bamboo to make sure it snugs comfortably into the wearer’s head.

Apo Teofilo spent years to master the amazing engineering inside the hat. Today, it only takes a week or two for the seventy-seven year old craftsman to make one.

A STRONG KISS. Like most folk art, history of tabungaw making is difficult to trace. Artist’s illustrations show early freedom fighters like Diego Silang and member of the Katipunan wearing a tabungaw. Tabungaw making was popular among Ilocano household until interest in the craft grandually declined. Apo Teofilo revealed that in his younger years, the tabungaw hat was called by his fellow hat-makers and friends as strong kiss because it guaranteed the wearer to get one from a date.

Apo Teofilo is the known master for this craft. He leads hat-making workshops in Abra. In his hometown, high school students wore the tabungaw hat that they made on their graduation march in place of the Oxford cap. In 2012, Apo Teofilo received the National Living Treasure award. This award, equivalent to the Order of the National Artist is bestowed by the state to craftsmen or manlilikha ng bayan for preserving and promoting local traditions and craft-making for future generations.

EPILOGUE: NATIONAL LIVING TREASURE. Nowhere is hat-making was raised to the level of fine art as Apo Teofilo did. Before leaving, we bought a tabungaw hat that the National Living Treasure signed as a priceless strong kiss from Abra.

Abra

INTO THE VALLEY OF FOLK ARTISTS. Cocooned between the legendary Cordilleras and the vast coastal towns of the two Ilocoses is the province of Abra. A trip in this verdant mountain valley offers travelers the opportunity to explore remote and hidden mountain and river trails that are rich in natural wonders.

But our lure to Abra is having the chance to meet the guardians of folk art and local traditions; a farmer who keeps the traditional way of making hats out of a native vegetable, a tribal elder and storyteller in a village settlement with the aborigines of Ilocos, the fabled Tingguians, and a cross-generational community of abel weavers.

BEYOND TANGADAN TUNNEL. Our day of discovery began the moment we stepped out from the bus after an eight-hour ride right in front of a mountain that towers at the end of the national highway. One enters Abra via  Tangadan Tunnel. The 62-meter tunnel cuts directly through the mountain and it took two years to build in the 1930s. A monument to the Abrense heroine, Gabriela Silang guards this entrance to Abra.

Beyond the tunnel is a wide rugged landscape broken by mountain ranges and foothills. Behind the jagged mountain peaks, the clouds moved slow to reveal the verdant valleys. Green is the color of the forest and of the rice fields that are kept moist by the rain and the narrow rivers lacing through the ethereal terrain.

APO TEOFILO’S STRONG KISS. The soil was soggy from the days of rain in the barrio of San Quintin where we hiked the muddy path, burdened by our city feet to meet the hat-maker, Teofilo Garcia at his home on a hill. Apo Teofilo is a local farmer who is famous for the craft of making katokong nga tabungaw, the Ilocano for elegant, rain and shine durable hats fashioned from native gourd. He learned the process of carving the vegetable and weaving the inner cushioning out of rattan from his grandfather when he was a teen. In his younger years, the tabungaw hat was called by his fellow hat-makers and friends as strong kiss because it guaranteed the wearer to get one from a date.

Apo Teofilo is the known master for this craft. He leads hat-making workshops in Abra. In his hometown, high school students wore the tabungaw hat that they made on their graduation march in place of the Oxford cap. In 2012, Apo Teofilo received the National Living Treasure award. This award, equivalent to the Order of the National Artist is bestowed by the state to craftsmen or manlilikha ng bayan for preserving and promoting local traditions and craft-making for future generations. Before we left Apo Teofilo, we bought a tabungaw hat that the National Living Treasure signed as a priceless strong kiss from Abra.

PIDIGAN. We exited San Quintin and entered the historic town of Pidigan. This town was established by Spanish friars in 1832 with the Immaculate Concepcion as patroness. Our next stopover was the ruins of the old church in this town’s poblacion. The bricks and old stone dates to 1890 but an earlier structure used to stand on the ruins. The church-convent was described to be octagonal in form with three altars and a watchtower. Built in 1823, it functioned both as a place for worship and fortification against invading tribes.

During World War II, the Japanese enemy used school buildings and residential houses in Pidigan as their barracks. In 1945, Pidigan became the seat of Abra’s local government while the country was in transition after the war.

TINGGUIANS OF NAMARABAR. At the Tingguian village of Namarabar in the town of Peñarrubia, we were welcomed by tribal elder Norma Mina Agaid. Graceful in her sleeves of heirloom beads, a symbol of prestige equivalent to the tattoos worn by their mountain cousins in Kalinga, the folk history of the Tingguian culture and tradition echoes in Norma’s lively storytelling through her embroideries.

In 1959, Norma wanted to paint but she can’t so she embroidered on abel fabric the Am-Amma that visualizes the story of their ancestor gods and folk myths, the all-weather Tingguian warriors guarding the Tangadan Tunnel against the invading Ilocanos, the Abrense heroine Gabriela Silang, the ancient method of dyeing cloth using barks and plants, the goddess weaver, Pinaing who introduced through dreams the weaving patterns pinilian and binakol and the embroidery style called kinamay to the Tingguian women.

SIDE TRIP TO BUCAY. From Namarabar, we revved up on paved mountain road to reach our next stop. Bucay was the provincial capital of Abra when it became independent from Ilocos Sur in 1847. Its name is said to come from the medicinal plant makabuhay that the friars introduced to the natives who were then afflicted by malaria.

A historical landmark in this town is the ruins of the Casa Real of the provincial governor. Only the arched front entrance bearing the coat of arms of Leon and Castille remains of the original Spanish structure.

TAYUM CHURCH. From Bucay, we raced to Tayum. The town’s name was taken from an indigo-yielding plant that the Tingguians used for dyeing yarns of cotton threads. At its town center is a cluster of ancestral structures dating back to the Spanish period.

Tayum’s oldest monument is its church. Its Baroque façade distinctly decorated with finials shaped like burnay jars from Vigan and  the bell tower alongside dated 1571. Dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria, the church was recognized as a National Cultural Treasure.

TAYUM HERITAGE TOWN. We walked around the poblacion to better see some heritage structures in Tayum. The Teodoro Brillantes House is the only heritage house in town to have a National Historical Institute marker. It’s supposed to be a museum but no one remembers when it last opened for viewing. A prominent feature of this American-era chalet is the brick work on the ground floor and the raised front porch with t-shaped staircase. There are no quarries in Abra so clay was baked to make bricks to encase the wooden posts and house frame.

The Flores House that was built in 1890 looks recently restored following the style of a bahay-na-bato that is distinct to Vigan with whitewashed stonework at the ground floor that is extended to the massive corner pillars on the upper floor. The Jose Cariño Sr. House has been left to the elements, but it is still possible to imagine the stateliness it once had through crumbling antique house.

GABRIELA SILANG MUSUEM OF FINE ARTS. Along Tayum’s Calle Real, the old royal road that links Abra’s former capital in Bucay to its present one in Bangued is the ancestral house of Don Nicolas Cariño.  It was in this house where his niece, Gabriela Cariño Silang took shelter after the assassination of her husband, Ilocano revolutionary Diego Silang in 1763.

A work in progress, rooms in this ancestral house are being converted into exhibition spaces for the museum dedicated to the Abrense heroine. The Gabriela Silang Museum of Fine Arts’ collection includes 5000 paintings and unnumbered European and Orientalia objects d’ art amassed by Ambassador Rosario Cariño from around the world.

BRUNCH IN BANGUED. We arrived in Abra’s provincial capital just before lunch time. Here, again was an epitome of Philippine town life, a neat rural community of relaxed people, ancestral structures, storied churches and hearty comfort meals. The ancestral house of Senate President Quintin Parades is a historical landmark that serves as a shrine to the late statesman. Then there is San Lorenzo Church that serves as an unofficial shrine to a certain Rosa Balitoc who unearthed gold from her yard that she donated to have this this church built at the town cemetery.

For brunch, we were treated with sinful servings of bagnet, pakbet and dinakdakan. Dinakdakan is a smokey-flavored pork dish dressed in vinegar and pig’s brains mixture.  We had a brief stopover right in the middle of Abra River through the lengthy Calaba Bridge on our way to La Paz.

ABEL LOOMS OF LA PAZ. Late in the afternoon we were introduced to a community of abel weavers in the town of La Paz. Abel is Ilocano verb for weave while inabel is a noun for woven fabric. This handwoven fabric is colorful and can last for centuries as heirloom pieces in forms of clothing, blankets and decorative accessories.

In Barangay Bulbulala, several box-type looms are arranged in a huge room like an assembly line. Women sat on each wooden loom with fixed concentration while they alternately pass the shuttle back and forth with their dexterous hands across an expanse of colored yards before them and push the pedal with their feet. Weaving abel is a skill passed down from one generation to the next and takes years to master. At one loom sat a girl in her preteens. Her fingers moved with same agility around the warp and weft of her unfinished cloth much like the master abel weavers before her.

EPILOGUE: A TIMELESS CONTINUUM. In Abra, pilgrims are welcomed with opened arms like long lost relatives. In this valley of folk artists, we are reminded by Apo Teofilo’s takurong nga tabungaw, Nana Norma’s Am-Amma, and the handmade abel fabrics of La Paz that we are all  part of the warp, weft and weave in a timeless continuum of Philippine life and culture. We belong to a single tribe.