PHILIPPINE HATS. ]2l 
recent record of this name applied to any other plant than P. utilissimus, 
and for it only at San Antonio^ Laguna^ where it is wild^ at Antipole, 
r 
Eizal^ where it has been introduced, and for the hats in nearly every 
place where they are sold, except in the locality where they are made. 
This Malayan nse of the term is significant, and doubtless indicates 
extreme antiquity, although the effect is somewhat spoiled by the fact 
that it extends to a leguminous plant in every way dissimilar. Xo parallel 
case has been found ioihalangot nor saboian, although there is a town 
Soputan, in Celebes, where pandans aboimd.^^ This is suggestive, but 
J _ 
no proof has been obtained that there is any connection with the Philip- 
pine use, or rather uses of the word. 
The most probable conclusion is that balangot has been an inclusive 
term for cheap, soft hats, and that these were formerly made largely 
from Cyperus malaccensis Lam., the name being still often retained for 
that and other sedges, but that now its use has been transferred to the 
hats made from the pandan already mentioned. As a distinct class of 
hats, it no longer has any other meaning. 
HEMP HATS. 
Materials taken from Manila hemp, abaca (Musa textilis Nee), are 
used for hats in four different ways. The leaves often form the interior 
part or body of salacots. In the schools at Zamboanga, actual hemp is 
being tested for hat making, with fairly satisfactory results. 
In various places, perhaps more in Manila than elsewhere, different 
qualities,- but usually the cheaper, of the cloth woven from hemp, called 
sinamay, plain or more often partly dyed, are cut into strips, and the 
strips sew^n into hats. They would do as a substitute for cloth caps, but 
they have little in their favor except durability. Such prices as have 
been encountered are absurdly high, from one peso and ten centavos to 
two pesos and a half for each hat. 
The remaining method is entirely different, but the Philippines merely 
supply the material for the product. Long, fine strands of the very best 
grade of hemp are tied end to end and made into coils, weighing a little 
less than 500 grams. This method of preparation is confined to Batangas. 
At Wohlen, Switzerland, this hemp and other materials have been used 
since the introduction of machine-made plaits, braids, laces, and trmi- 
mings for ladies' fancy summer hats and other millinery, the change 
having taken place between 1855 and 1860. Since that time, these 
materials have largely taken the place of native straw-plait manufacture, 
which could not meet the competition of China and Japan. The hemp 
plaits are among the preferred materials as regards length, but are not 
adapted to bleaching nor are they as smooth as some others. Such 
materials are cleaned, washed, bleached or dyed, and spun into threads 
^•Sarassin, P, & P. Reisen in Celebes 1 (1905) 69-74, pi 3. 
