Artisans

The Mangyans and their Ramit

The Mangyan people are tribal communities that inhabit Mindoro Island. In Oriental Mindoro, several ethno-linguistic groups are scattered throughout the island, divided into the north and south: the Iraya, Alangan and Tadyawan in the North; and the Hanunoo, Buhid and Bangon in the South. 

A Male member of the tribe traditionally wears a loincloth known as the ba-ag, while the women wear the Ramit, an indigo dyed handwoven cloth, as skirt with a blouse or a lambung, while Hanunuo man wear a balukas (shirt) embroidered with their traditional motif known as the pakudus. The pakudos was originally used as a symbol and a token to ward off evil spirits or bad omen. Today, the pakudos is mostly considered as a decoration and is popularly used as a design on bags made of buri (palm leaf) and nito vine. These bags are called the bay-ong. These traditional clothes distinguish the Mangyan from the damu-ong, luktanun, sandugo or the Non-Mangyans and outsiders.

Other Mangyan groups wear the willed rattan belts with the pocket or the “hagkus”; men wear loincloths made with barks of trees together with a belt and headband. Women wear a skirt also fashioned from bark called the ‘lingob’ and a bandeau called the ‘sagpan’ to cover their breasts. The Mangyans are particularly fond of wearing beads in the form of necklaces, bracelets and headbands. Apart from these being decorative pieces, they are often symbolic of religion, rituals, love and payments for any offenses made.

Many generations back, the Ramit fabric were twined and wovem with indigenous cotton seed materials. Nowadays, Ramit materials are made from cotton threads that the Mangyan sourced from commercial and industrial producers of modern day garments, most particularly jeans. The scrap materials from cuttings of jeans materials are meticulously separated strand by strand and spun in unending threads which they in turn loom by hand. Mangyan women learned to ‘recycle waste threads’. According to the NTFP EDO from Mindoro, ‘although the materials are no longer indigenous, the skill used in producing the Ramit is still indigenous while the recycling of waste threads are environmentally sound and entreprenuerial’. With their traditional backstrap looming skills, the women weave these cotton threads into ramit fabrics showing varied patterns, and now, with the intervention of Product Development by the NTFP-Task Force, more colour combinations are recreated.

The ramit, primarily characterized by its distinct stripe patterns with cultural Mangyan designs, are used by the women as skirts, belts, headbands and blankets. Men are prohibited culturally to weave as this is a task reserved only for the women, including the embroidery and sewing. Instead, the men support in the preparation of the materials to produce the ramit.

Apart from the weaving of the Ramit, the Mangyans are adept at weaving baskets and forging knives, bolo, spears and other instruments of this nature. Basketry is mainly made with buri palm leaf  and adorned with split nito vine strips to create the distinct Mangyan designs.

Buon-buon are baskets distinctly Mangyan in nature, hexagonal in shape including the lid and overlaid with nito vine strips and created in different diameters and sizes. The bay-ong sinuluyan, made with very fine strips of buri palm leaf and likewise decorated with strips of nito vine, is always crafted with the pakudus. The shape of this basket makes it distinct for having a square base and round rim. Other baskets are made using rattan, rattan strips and blackened bamboo. The many variations in the weaving of the rattan and bamboo create many different designs of the baskets.