Philippines_Ifugao Mud Dyeing

Ifugao people are known for their centuries old rice terraces, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And the harvest ritual of Punnuk included in the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Even in these times, the Ifugao people are able to preserve much of their traditional culture including textile weaving and many of its process. Many of indegenous community in the Philippines still practice the hand weaving and the ikat, a technique of dyeing and creating patterns. The use of mud in the dyeing process is one of the most interesting aspects of the Ifugao textile making. Mud is used as one of the mordants.
■National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) of the Philippines
ICHCAP
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Script
The mist veils the mountains and the villages…
…perforated by the thousand pricks of pine needles…
…that bristles on the slopes and slowly dissipates among the quivering rice stalks…
on paddies carved out of the mountains.
It lends a pensive mantle to the majesty of the cluster of rice terraces.
It meets the steam from the villages…
…coming from the pots where dyes, yarns and mud mix…
which in time and with patience will unfurl as intricate textiles, made by deft hands and pulled out from the cultural treasury of a community.
For many centuries, textiles have been woven by the Ifugao, one of the indigenous groups that inhabit the upland interiors of the Cordillera region of northern Luzon Island in the Philippines.
The Ifugao people is known for their centuries-old rice terraces recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site as well as its cycle of chants called hudhud and the harvest ritual of punnuk,
included in the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage of the world.
Even in these times, the Ifugao are able to preserve much of its rich traditional culture including textile weaving and many aspects of its process.
Many indigenous communities in the Philippines still practice hand weaving and the ikat,
a technique of dyeing in which threads are tied to create patterns, including the Ifugao, who makes textiles of plain weave
as well as the more complicated ones such as fabric with warp float design.
Like many weaving communities in the country, they use the back-strap loom since the olden days and they also use the pedal looms which were recently introduced.
Other modern conveniences have also been adopted.
For the process of weaving, first, you have to purchase the thread. We're sorry that we don’t grow our own cotton here. Maybe in the future, if the DA and PHILFIDA will help us, maybe we can grow cotton. Because right now, cotton is grown in Ifugao but it’s in Asipulo. We can grow that.
We purchase the cotton from Baguio or Manila then we wind it, putting them into balls.
Then we warp them.
After warping them and if it is for ikat, then we have to tie them.
But if it is just for pick up design, we just warp them and start weaving.
For dyeing, many weavers resort to commercially available dyes
but many still retain the use of traditional vegetable dyes and more are now rediscovering and reviving this traditional process.
For ikat, we have to do the process of mud dyeing. We can even use certain different kinds of dyes that we find around.
We use turmeric for yellow color. We use cogon for yellow color. We use mayana for light green color. We use the betel nut...betel lime for red and brown colors.
For indigo blue or the grayish or blackish, that's the time we use the hawili, blu blu, or mud for coloring.
We are using the blu-blu leaf and the bark of the tree hawili. That is the materials we are using.
We are going to find in the forest and then
The blu-blu is rare to find it so we have to walk at distance, like one kilometer, two kilometers, it depends.
So, this is the blu-blu. The blu-blu is found.
If we find it, we get it, and bring home to use for our weaving. For the dyeing of the thread.
The use of mud in the dyeing process is one of the most interesting aspects of the Ifugao textile making.
In some traditional weaving communities in the Philippines, weavers use in dyeing a mordant,
a substance to fix the colors on the materials, to make them more vivid or to create a different shade.
Mud is used as one of the mordants.
Aside from the Ifugao, the Mandaya and Maguindanao peoples of the southern part of the country, and the Bontoc in the Cordillera region also use mud in their traditional dyeing processes.
It is a process of coloring or dyeing our ikat. It is a tradition that has been passed on from one generation to the other. We cannot recall how many generations it is.
But when we were growing up, mud dyeing is already being done. As I told you, it was diminishing so it is now only that we revived it.