CHAPTER XII

INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITIES

DIVISION OF LABOR

It is to be expected that among a people whose women have been obtained practically by purchase the burden of work will fall on the woman. The Manóbo man, however, at times performs an amount of heavy, hard work that makes the division somewhat equitable.

MALE ACTIVITIES

House building, hunting, fishing, and trapping fall to the lot of the man. When the rice-planting season is at hand, he fells the trees and does the heavier work of clearing. An occasional war raid or an occasional visit to some distant settlement for trading purposes may impose upon him a few days of hard travel. Outside of these occupations his work is comparatively light. He attends to his weapons, makes such objects of wood or of bamboo as may be needed, and decorates them after his style. He splits the rattan and does nearly all the plait work in basket making. All the necessary implements for fishing, hunting, and trapping are made by him, with the exception of steel weapons. He strips the _abaká_ for the family clothes and procures the dye plants. In certain districts he is the miner and in others he is the boat builder, and in all districts he conducts trading transactions.

FEMALE ACTIVITIES

The Manóbo woman certainly has her share of work. She does all the dyeing, weaving, and tailoring, besides attending to the various household duties of providing fuel, food, and water. These latter occupations impose upon her at least one trip daily to the _camote_ field, and several to the watering place, which in the mountainous districts is ordinarily at a considerable distance down steep and rugged trails. She attends to the children and cares for the sick, and day after day dries, pounds, winnows and cooks the rice. When her helpmate has felled the trees for the new farm, she does the looping, lighter clearing, burning, sowing, weeding, tilling, and harvesting. In her spare moments she makes mats, rice bags, and earthen vessels, braids an occasional armlet, does the beadwork, and a thousand and one little things according to the exigency of the moment or the requirements of her spouse.

MALE INDUSTRIES IN DETAIL

The various operations of fishing, hunting, trapping, house building, agriculture, and trading have been already described so that there remain to be considered only boat building, mining, and plait work.

BOAT BUILDING

The art of boat building is known only to Manóbos who have been in contact with Banuáons, so that one would be led to think that the art is of Banuáon origin. It is confined practically to the Kasilaían, Líbang, Maásam, Óhut, and Wá-wa Rivers, though one finds a boat builder here and there on the Híbung River and on the Simúlau River, but only an occasional one, if any, on the Argáwan, Umaíam, Ihawán, and upper Agúsan.

The boat is a dugout usually made of _magasinó'_, _kalántas_, or some light durable wood. The tree is selected, hewed down with the simple ax, and by dint of hard chopping hollowed out and shaped. In this way are made nearly all the skiffs, canoes, and boats that ply up the network of rivers in the Agúsan Valley. It is not uncommon to see a _banca_, or large boat, 10 meters long by 1 meter beam.

MINING

Mining is confined to the Híbung River and its tributaries, to the Wá-wa River, and to the Taligamán district, a few hours' walk to the southeast of Butuán. It is a desultory occupation followed more at the request of Bisáya traders, or in fulfillment of a contract, than out of any desire for gold.

The time selected is usually after a flood. The gold is washed out with a circular, hollow, wooden pan.[1] The operation has an established religious procedure which, must be followed if one wishes to be successful in the acquisition of the gold. The theory is as follows: The gold is the property of a gold spirit, whose place in the Manóbo pantheon I can not state. To enter upon his domains and to remove the ore which is his without feasting him and making him a present of a living victim for a future repast would provoke his wrath and result in failure to obtain the object of the search. Hence the leader of the miners upon arrival at the mining ground turns loose a white fowl and kills a white pig in honor of the gold spirit. He also presents to the spirit leaf packages of boiled native rice. The mining operations then begin, but the peculiar feature of the whole procedure is that the rice packages are purchased from the leader at the rate of 1 _ku-len-tás-on_[2] for two packages. Noise and merriment are interdicted during the mining operations as being displeasing to the gold spirit, but if, upon infringement of this taboo, further oblations of rice are made to him he resumes his good humor and permits the gold to be found.

[1] _Bi-ling-án_.

[2] _Ku-len-tás-on_ are said to weigh one-half of the gold piece that was in circulation in the Philippine Islands, in pre-American days, and which was valued at 12.5 cents United States currency.

I found these beliefs to be held as far over as the upper Tágo River, on the eastern side of the Pacific Cordillera.

PLAITING AND OTHER ACTIVITIES

The plaiting and braiding of such objects as arm and leg ligatures out of _nito_ or other vegetable fiber nearly always falls to the lot of the women. The plaiting of baskets out of rattan, as well as the making of fish traps and pack baskets, is generally a male occupation.

The process of basket making is fairly simple. A more or less cylindrical, solid piece of wood with flat bottom and top forms the mold upon which the strips of rattan are interlaced. A circular band of bamboo strengthens the upper rim, a coating of the pulp of the seed of the _tabon-tábon_ fills up the crevices and makes the basket almost perfectly water-tight.

Pack baskets that are used for carrying game and for general utility on long voyages are of the open wickerwork description.

I know of only two Manóbo blacksmiths in the whole of Manóboland. They learned the trade from Bisáyas and produce bolos much like the Bisáya or Bohol type seen in the Agúsan Valley. Here and there one meets a Manóbo who understands how to beat out a fish spear or a fishhook, or to make a crude pipe, but, with these exceptions, the Manóbo knows nothing of steel or iron work.

As to the decoration, it is manifest from what has been said that he can do simple but creditable work. The ornaments on bamboo tubes, combs, baskets, and certain other things are evidences of his skill. So are the tattoo and embroidery designs described in a previous chapter.

FEMALE INDUSTRIES IN DETAIL

WEAVING AND ITS ACCESSORY PROCESSES

_Abaká_ fiber is stripped by men and delivered to the womenfolk. The women pound it for a long time in a wooden mortar to soften it, then patiently tie strand to strand, placing it carefully in small hollow baskets, where it is free from danger of entangling. Sand is often sprinkled on it as a further means of preventing tangling.

Cotton yarn is prepared from the native plant by means of a very primitive spindle, which consists of a small rod of wood at the end of which is a top-shaped piece of the same material which serves to sustain the necessary rotation. A tuft of cotton is attached to the end of this bar, and, as the top rotates the thread is twisted. When the thread is sufficiently long it is wound around the handle and the operation is. repeated. By this slow and tedious process a sufficient amount of yarn is spun for the requirements of the spinner.

The dyeing process consists in boiling the _abaká_ yarn with finely chopped pieces of various woods.[3] In order to produce a permanent dye, the process of boiling must be repeated more than once with new dyeing material. As the boiling apparatus consists nearly always of small earthen pots and the boiling is continually interrupted by culinary operations, it is obvious that the process is an inordinately slow and unsatisfactory one. I am of the opinion that to produce a fast red dye on sufficient yarn for about seven skirts, the boiling occupies the better part of two wrecks.

[3] _Si-ká-lig_ root for red effects, pieces of _kanai-yum_ tree for black and pieces of _du-au_ for yellow effects.

Cotton yarn is never dyed. Whenever colors are desired, imported cotton must be obtained through Christian or Christianized intermediaries.

The weaving is performed on a simple, portable loom, consisting of two internodes of bamboo, one at the back part and one at the front part. The warp threads pass serially around these two pieces of bamboo and between the slits of a primitive comb situated within arm reach of the posterior bamboo internode. The comb consists of an oblong rectangle about 80 by 5 centimeters, having a series of little reeds set parallel at a distance of 1.5 millimeters from each other. Through these interstices pass the warp threads. Just beyond this comb and farther away from the weaver is a hardwood rood[sic], as wide as the weft, around which are single loops of _abaká_ or other fiber. Through these loops pass alternately the warp threads in such a way that when the batten is inserted the upper and lower alternate warp threads are reversed, thereby holding the weft threads in the position to which they have been driven by the batten.

The weft thread is wound upon a bobbin made out of a slender piece of rattan which has two slits at each end, through which the weft thread passes. The bobbin is driven through by the hand from side to side and between the upper and the lower warp threads. The heavy, hardwood, flat, polished batten is then worked by the hand, driving the weft thread into juxtaposition with the part of the fabric finished already. The weaver then inserts the batten between the warp threads at the point where they alternately pass up and down through the previously mentioned loops on the distal side of the comb, and between it and the rod that holds the loops. By pulling the comb back to the finished part of the fabric, the warp threads are reversed and the last weft thread is securely held in place. Thus the process is repeated over and over again until the fabric is finished.

The setting up of a piece of skirt cloth would occupy some two whole days of uninterrupted work and the weaving some three days, but as multitudinous household duties call the woman away constantly, she spends the better part of at least two weeks on one piece, this period not including the preparation of the yarn by tying and dyeing.

In weaving the woman sits upon the floor and keeps the warp threads stretched by a rope that passes round her back from each extremity of the yarn beam. When not in use, the web and the finished fabric are folded up around the beam.

The products of the Manóbo loom are not as numerous and artistic as those of the Mandáyas. The cloth produced is of four kinds: (1) The ordinary skirt or mosquito-bar cloth made out of _abaká_ fiber and having white and black longitudinal warp stripes, alternating with the stripes of the red background; (2) a closely woven but thin cloth of _abaká_ having sometimes, as in the case of men's jackets, straight weft stripes of imported blue cotton; (3) a cloth of the same material, but so thin as to be diaphanous, and not adorned with any stripes; (4) a cloth for trousers made out of an _abaká_ warp and a native cotton woof.

In the chapter on dress reference has been made to the elaborate and beautiful effects produced by the Mandáyas on _abaká_ cloth. The Manóbo woman has no knowledge of the process by which such effects are obtained.

It is interesting to note that the two yarn beams are cut in such a manner as to emit a booming sound at each stroke of the batten. I have seen an additional internode attached to the end yarn beam in a vertical position, with a view to increasing the resonance. The object of these sounders is to call attention to the industry and assiduity of the weaver.

POTTERY

The whole pottery industry consists in the making of rude earthen pots out of clay. It is confined to places near which the proper clay is found. A piece of clay is kneaded and mixed with fine sand till it attains the proper consistency. A piece is then laid over a round stone and beaten gently till it becomes sufficiently dry and rigid to serve for a bottom to which clay is added strip by strip, at first thick but gradually thinned with the fingers, until the pot is completed. It is in the union of these strips that defects are liable to occur. Hence the best workers patiently sit for hours beating their pots with a little wooden mallet. The pots are then put into a hot fire and burnt several times till they become sufficiently brittle to resist the fire, but the manufacturers seem to lack a proper test, because the cracking of a new pot is an ordinary occurrence.

The pot is spherical in shape with a wide mouth and a neck which, by its incurving, makes it possible to hang it up by means of a piece of rattan when it is not in use. There may be a few indentations running around the neck for the purpose of decoration. It is customary to provide the pot with a crude cover, also made of sand and clay.

TAILORING AND MAT MAKING

Tailoring is such a simple affair in Manóboland that it hardly deserves mention. Whenever an imported needle of European or American make is not to be had, a piece of brass wire is filed down and an eye made in it. With the simple utensil and with a thread of _abaká_ fiber, the garment is sewn with a kind of a transverse cross-stitch. When imported cotton is on hand, nearly all seams are covered with either a continuous fringe of cotton in alternate colors or with neat wavy stitches, all of which serve both to conceal the seams and to embellish the garment.

In making a garment the piece of cloth is folded into a rectangle which forms the body of the garment. A piece large enough to make the sleeves remains. No piece is thrown away, there being no superfluous clippings. All cutting is done with a bolo.[4]

[4] In the chapter on dress reference has been made to the method of embroidery and to the various designs in common use.

Mats and bags are made out of _pandanus_. The same methods so commonly used throughout the Philippine Islands are employed by the Manóbos.