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VALDEZ, KATHLEEN ANDREA D.

ENGL 3 7:30-9:00 M-S S-508

BSN-II

JUNE 29, 2016

THE FASHION OF MT. PROVINCE

Marc Jacob once said "To me, clothing is a form of a self-expression- there
are hints about who you are in what you wear." Clothing is a way that mirrors
oneself. It expresses ones feelings and identity. One great example is the
Cordillerans. The Cordillerans is known for their colorful extravagant way of
clothing. Maybe some of us watched the Panagbenga Festival wherein we witnessed
their colorful attire.
The clothing and Personal accessories varies from their gender and ages. For
women, from infancy to the age of 8 and often 10 years old are naked. Seldom they
see the girls in their village naked. Though practically all girls from about 5 years
including women have blankets which are worn during when its cold and always
after sundown, though no pretense is made to cover their nakedness. During the
day this pi'-tay or blanket is seldom worn except in the dance. The author said that
she never seen women or girls dance without it. The blankets of the girls are
usually small and white with a blue stripe down each side and through the middlethey are called "kd-pa". Those of the women are of four kinds- the t-na-pi, the
fa-yi-ong, the fan-ch-la and the pi-nag-pagan. In Barkig, Tulubin, Agawa the
flayed tree-bark blanket is worn. And in Kambulo, east of Barlig, woven bark-fiber
blankets are mades which sometimes come to Bontoc. Before a girl puts on her
lufid or the woven bark-fiber skirt at about 8-10 years of age, she at times wears
simply the narrow girdle, later to hold up the skirt. The skirt is both narrow and
short. It usually extends from below the navel to near the knees. There are three
kinds of lufid, woven in different manners, with different color designs, and worn on
different occasions. These are the following: Inorma and Pinagpakan is having
similar weave of many colorful threads and made of three strips of narrow cloth
sewn together to form one piece. Kinarachao is a work day skirt made of two strips
of white-red stripes. Lufid also varies whether you are rich or poor. For those

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Wealthy Womens skirt is called khinawaan which has a white strip in the middle.
The poor womens skirt has the kinayan, a red and white skirt of plain weave. The
lufid is secured around the waist by a thick wide woven belt with fringes on both
ends called the wakes. They have two kind of wakes. The Inawin coarsely woven of
different colorful threads and worn daily with the kinarachao and the Palasen a
more special white belt delicately embroidered with red, blue, yellow, and green
threads worn on festivities with the Inorma and Pinagpakan. For a long time, the
women did not wear anything from the waist up. Instead of clothing, the breast,
neck, and arms had tattooes. Their hair are held in place by colorful beads, some of
which are rare and valuable like the apon-ngey made of red agate stone cut in
different shapes, the fukas of white ivory having tapering oblong shape; of lesser
value, like the moting, tiny red white and yellow porcelain beads; Ing-ngit, which
are bones of snake and teeth of the monkey. These two have other purposes other
than the one they were intended for. The snake bones are boiled now and then to
cure stomach ailments; the monkey teeth are for protection against lightning.
Lastly, is the koshao made of black stone worn by a widow in mourning. For the
attires of men, up to the age of 6 or 7 years of age the Igorot boys are as naked as
when born. At the time they put on the suk-lang, the basket -work hat worn on the
back of the head, heldin place by a cord attached at both sides and passing across
the forehead and usually hidden by the front hair. The suklang is made in nearly all
pueblos or villages in Bontoc Culture area. It does not extend uninterruptedly to the
western border, however, the Lepanto border, as Fidelisan and Genugan, it has a
rival in the headband. The beaten-bark headband called a-pong-ot and the
headband of cloth are worn by short-haired men and for those long haired men
wore hat. This varies in shape from the fez-like ti-no-od of Bontoc and Samoki,
through various hemispherical forms, to the low, flat hats developing eastward and
perfected in the last mountains west of Rio Grande de Cagayan. Barlig makes and
wears a carved wooden hat, either hemispherical or slightly oval. The men of
Bontoc area also have a basket-work, conical rain hat. It is waterproof covered with
beeswax. And its called seg-fi and worn only when it rains at which time the suklang is often removed. The men wear long strips of handwoven loin cloth called
wakes. Wakes have two varieties; these are the Chinagta a woven coarse white

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cotton thread sometimes worn by some men but usually a deads man attire. The
Finaliling a special type of embroidered wanes worn during festivals. They also vary
for the wealthy man and for the ordinary man. For the ordinary man they called
Tinapi. The designs of the weaves symbolize the class of the person, more color
combination, more complex designs, the higher is the social and economic standing
of the person wearing it. They do not wear any clothing except a heavy woven
blanket called pinagpakan. This simply wrapped around the body during cold
weather. They also wear headgears which you can identify married men from a
bachelor. The bachelors have the colorful small rounded hat beautifully adorned
with beads, boars teeth, and red feathers called fal-aka, while for married man has
a slightly larger one, brown and unadorned. Besides the decoration these also serve
as a pocket for keeping pipes, tobacco leaves matches and other little things. There
are also burial clothes and these also varies. For a dead married man wears a
chinagta, a pure white woven loin cloth and a tochong a handkerchief tied around
the head. For the married woman wears kayin a dark navy blue woven cloth and
also a tochong similar to that of man. For those unmarried man and woman, they
are simply wrapped in course woven white cloth and buried without a coffin. For a
child, simply wrapped in white woven cloth. Nowadays, anyone could wear the Gstring with many colors and different designs. It has evolved from attire that
distinguishes persons by class to one that is accessible to everyone .
There clothes may differ from one another but that will not be the reason of
their misunderstanding rather this only shows how rich their culture, how simple
and who really they are. We are already on our 20 th century but lets not forget
where we came from

References:
Cawed, C. (1972) The Culture of the Bontoc Igorot. Manila, Philippines:
MCS Enterprises, Inc. (pp. 10-11)

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Jenks, A.E.(1905) The Bontoc Igorot. Manila, Philippines:
Bureau of Public Printing (p. 111, 113)
http://www.nscb.gov.ph/rucar/fnf_mprov.htm
https://s-media-cacheak0.pinimg.com/736x/1f/bb/c2/1fbbc24cef9c8654219705a0d94ae097.jpg
http://www.icbe.eu/accordion-a-5/philippine-cordillera/675-loincloth-g-string-bahag