GAMABA

• Haja Amina Appi


  Master mat weaver among the Sama indigenous community of Ungos Matata
• Haja Amina Appi is from Ungos Matata, Tandubas, Tawi-Tawi
• Haja Amina Appi's mats

  • Colorful with complex geometric patterns
  • Exhibit precise sense of design, proportion and symmetry
  • Sensitivity to color
  • Unique multi-colored mats protected by a plain white outer mat that serves as the backing
• Haja Amina Appi's functional and artistic creations take up to three months to make
• Mat weaving


  Handed down the matrilateral line, as men in the Sama culture do not take up the craft
• Mat weaving process


  1. Harvesting and stripping down the pandan leaves

  2. Actual execution of the design
• The whole process of mat weaving is exclusive to women
• Mat weaving is a long and tedious process, and requires much patience and stamina
• Mat weaving


  • Requires an eye for detail
  • An unerring color instinct
  • A genius for applied mathematics
• Mat weaving process


  1. Harvesting wild pandan leaves

  2. Removing thorns

  3. Stripping leaves with a jangat deyum or stripper to make long and even strips

  4. Sun-drying strips

  5. Pressing strips beneath a large log

  6. Dyeing strips by boiling in hot water mixed with anjibi or commercial dye

  7. Sun-drying dyed strips for 3-4 days

  8. Pressing dyed strips until pliant

  9. Weaving into a colorful geometric design
• Haja Amina Appi's weaving technique

  Instead of beginning at the outermost edges of the mat, she weaves a central strip to form the mat's backbone, then works to expand the mat from within
• Haja Amina Appi has come up with some of her own modern designs, in addition to using traditional techniques
• Designing the mats


  • More difficult than mixing the colors is the visualization and execution of the design itself
  • It is high precision work, requiring a mastery of the medium and an instinctive sense of symmetry and proportion
  • Despite the number of calculations involved, Haja Amina only has her amazing memory, an instinct and a lifetime of experience, without any list or mathematical formula
• Haja Amina Appi is respected throughout her community for her unique designs, the straightness of her edging (tabig) and the fineness of her sasa and kima-kima
• Haja Amina Appi's hands are thick and callused from years of harvesting, stained by dye, but her hands are still steady, and her eye for color still unerring
• Haja Amina Appi feels pride in the fact that people often borrow her mats to learn from her and copy her designs
• Mat weaving does not seem to be a lost art as all of Haja Amina Appi's female children and grandchildren from her female descendants have taken it up
• Haja Amina Appi is a patient and gentle teacher, but her passion for perfection shows itself as she runs a finger alongside the uneven stitching and obvious patchwork on her apprentices' work
• Magdalena Gamayo is a 2012 Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan awardee
• Magdalena Gamayo lives in Pinili, Ilocos Norte, a couple of hours drive away from the capital of Laoag, in a quiet rural enclave dedicated to rice, cotton and tobacco crops
• Even though the roads are much improved, sourcing quality cotton threads for her abel is still a challenge for Magdalena Gamayo
• Magdalena Gamayo used to spin her own cotton and brushed it with beeswax to make it stronger, but after the Second World War, she now relies on a market-bought thread
• There are less local suppliers of thread nowadays, a sign that there is less demand for their wares, but nonetheless, the abel-weaving tradition in Ilocos remains strong
• Good thread


  • Resilient, able to withstand several passes through the loom
  • Good weight and color
  • Fibers should not be loose
  • Should endure years of use
• Magdalena Gamayo's preference


  Linen, because it is obedient to the master weaver's touch
• Magdalena Gamayo has abel in her personal collection that has been in use for generations, gradually getting softer from handling, but retaining their structural integrity and intricate designs
• Weaving


  • Knowing how to choose a quality thread
  • Intuit thread placements on the loom
  • Proper tension to the threads so the warp can sustain the punishing over-and-under insertion of the weft
  • Keeping a steady rhythm so the shuttle passes through the warp evenly to ensure a smooth finish
• This complicated weaving process is no big deal for computerized machines but Magdalena Gamayo recreates it every day manually, relying only on instinct, practice, and innate skill
• Magdalena Gamayo


  • Learned the art of weaving from her aunt at age 16, by copying the patterns
  • Never formally taught, but picked up the art on her own
• At the time Magdalena Gamayo was learning to weave, every girl in her village knew how to weave, and there would be an informal competition among her cousins and friends as to who could weave the finest, who could be more consistent
• Magdalena Gamayo's first loom lasted her at least 30 years, sustaining her through years of marriage and motherhood
• Today, there are few locals who have the skills to put together a loom similar to the ones Magdalena Gamayo uses
• Magdalena Gamayo has two students: her cousin's daughter-in-law, who moved to Magdalena's community after marrying into Magdalena's family; and her sister-in-law, who learned how to weave relatively late, at the age of 38
• Even though Magdalena Gamayo is already 88 years old, her eyesight still holds true and she still takes care of arranging the threads on the loom, which is the hardest task of all in weaving
• Magdalena Gamayo has taught herself the traditional patterns of binakol, inuritan, kusikos, and sinan-sabong, which is the most challenging pattern
• Magdalena Gamayo has also taught herself to recreate designs, which is a useful skill particularly when she is only able to see the design but does not have a sample of how it is done
• Weaving


  • Threading the shuttle through the warp, over and under the strands to tease out the pattern
  • Expertly manipulating the foot pedals to ensure the right column of fibers is raised or lowered at the exact instant to make way for the onrushing shuttle
• Weaving is punishing work, hard on the back and leg muscles, demanding on the eyes, resulting in rough calluses on the hands
• Magdalena Gamayo's handiworks


  • Finer than most abel
  • Her blankets have a very high thread count
  • Her designs are the most intricate and can sometimes take up to five colors
  • Ensuring the right colored threads are spaced evenly and keeping accurate count is a challenge that Magdalena has always unerringly met
• The beauty of Magdalena Gamayo's designs lies in how delicate the patterns are, and yet how uniform the weave