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Pinilian (Sinan-mata ken sinan-sabong)

LOCAL NAME:

Pinilian (Sinan-mata ken sinan-sabong)

ENGLISH NAME:

Blanket with eye-like or flower-like design

DESCRIPTION:

Abra, Tinguian, Itneg, Ilocos, & Ilocano: Pinilian (Sinan-mata ken sinan-sabong)

A three-paneled brocade-woven blanket with red-indigo stripes, flower-inspired motifs, white embroidered joinery, and green-red-yellow fringed borders.

COMMONLY USED BY/IN:

Abra, Tinguian, Itneg, Ilocos, Ilocano

MATERIAL COMPOSITION:

Cotton threads, Natural dye

ITEM CONSTRUCTION:

Brocade weave, Embroidery, Stitching, Dyeing

DIMENSIONS:

Length
184 cm

Width
117.5 cm

ACQUISITION YEAR:

2021

RESEARCH DATA:

One of the most notable handwoven textiles in the Cordillera is the pinilian of the Itneg (otherwise known as Tinguian) in Abra. The term pinilian is derived from the root word pili, which means "choose" or "select." It refers to the supplementary weft technique used in textile weaving. The designs made using this technique are created using either continuous or discontinuous supplementary weft yarns (Pastor-Roces, 1991). Woven using continuous supplementary weft yarn, weavers of this kind of textile employs pili or sticks to select specific warp threads, which the thicker weft yarn, connected to a double-horn-edged shuttle known as sikkuan, then interlocks with (Respicio, 2015) to form the desired motif.

They come in the form of blankets which have two or more panels of woven textiles elaborately stitched together through a form of embroidery. Different designs are created by combining anthropomorphic, botanical, celestial, geometric, and zoomorphic motifs when weaving. Additionally, like other Abra blankets, this pinilian blanket has panels of woven textiles joined by a traditional stylized stitching method. The motif includes: kuko-palay (fingernails and rice stalks) joinery, also known as sinan-ramay (finger-like) joinery. The same stitching technique is also used to border the blanket.



REFERENCES:

Cole, F.C. (1922). The Tinguian: social, religious, and economic life of a Philippine tribe. Publications of the Field Museum of natural history. Anthropological series, 14(2), 231–493.

Pastor-Roces, M. (1991). Sinaunang Habi: Philippine Ancestral Weave. Nikki Books.

Respicio, N. A. (2015). Design techniques and weaving centers. In Inabel: Philippine textile from the Ilocos Region, 48-143. Artpostasia.

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