RESEARCH DATA:

This abaca woven textile from the collection is an upper garment for Bagobo women, featuring embroidered sleeves and a resist-dye-designed bodice, commonly referred to as the ompak (also umpak), the general term for upper garment (shirt) among the Bagobo. Traditionally, Bagobo women wore an appliquéd blouse (umpak ka bayi) paired with an abaca tube ikat skirt (Hamilton, 1998). However, this particular piece from the collection exhibits a different variant of the Bagobo ompak. Instead of an appliquéd and beaded bodice, this garment is intricately woven using abaca threads with very fine designs of geometric shapes and patterns done through resist-dye and embroidery.
Aside from the ikat technique in Mindanao textile traditions, there are two other resist-dye techniques crafted in the region: the pelangi/plangi and the tritik (Hamilton, 1998). According to Hamilton (1998), the pelangi, or plangi, refers to the resist-dye technique of the Bagobo, which he described as their specialty. In plangi, circular motifs are produced on fabrics, commonly found on Bagobo tangkulo headscarves and tinangkulo garments. On this textile from the collection, however, the resist-dye technique present is tritik rather than plangi, which, according to Hamilton (1998), is the specialty of the Kulaman indigenous group. Reyes (1992) also noted that the tritik is a resist-dye technique only employed by the Blaan and the Kulaman. She defined the tritik as a resist-dye technique that requires “oversewing the cloth before dyeing, and then the threads were removed, leaving the white designs” (Reyes, 1992, p. 109).
The resist-dye design on the bodice of this textile from the collection is comparable to tritik-finished textiles, given the exceptionally fine details of the resisted portions, which are quite impossible to achieve through the other resist-dye techniques mentioned earlier. Despite being a Bagobo textile, the bodice of this garment is reminiscent of the tritik of the Kulaman or Blaan, which can possibly occur because of the presence of trade between these groups and other neighboring groups in the region. Hamilton (1998) noted that, despite being specialties of specific groups, the fabrics produced using the tritik technique were “routinely traded from one group to another” (p. 25). Hamilton (1998) explained that there were reported instances in which tritik garments, made by Kulaman experts, were traded to and obtained by the Bagobo.
The designs on the sleeves, on the other hand, are also not of Bagobo origin. The embroideries are comparable to Blaan embroidery designs, which also suggests that the Bagobo obtained these embroidered parts of the garment from the Blaan. Hamilton (1998) also noted that Blaan embroiderers were highly regarded for their skill, and the Bagobo often acquired garments embroidered by their Blaan neighbors. To reiterate, the bodice of this textile could possibly be of Kulaman or Blaan origin because of its resemblance to the tritik, obtained by the Bagobo through trade, while the sleeves were possibly commissioned work or were embroidered by Blaan embroiderers and traded to the Bagobo.