CHAPTER VI 



DRESS 

 GENERAL REMARKS 



DELICACY IN EXPOSURE OF THE PERSON 



Like all tribes of eastern Mindanao, Manobos, both men and women, wear sufficient clothes 

 to cover the private parts of the body. Children up to the age of 5 or 6 years may go without 

 clothes, but female children commonly wear a triangular pubic shield 1 of coconut shell, suspended 

 by a waist string. Men, though they may denude themselves completely when bathing, always 

 conceal their pudenda from one another's gaze. 



Married and elderly women may occasionally expose the upper part of their persons, but 

 unmarried girls seldom do so. No delicacy is felt in exposing the breasts during the suckling of 

 a babe. 



VARIETY IN QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF CLOTHES 



The quantity and quality of clothes worn varies slightly in different localities. The farther 

 away from settlements the people live, the poorer and less elaborate is the dress, due to their 

 inability to obtain the imported cloth and cotton yarn, for which they entertain a high preference. 

 On the upper Agusan, where the Manobos have adopted a certain amount of Mandaya culture, 

 their apparel partakes of the more gorgeous character of that of the Mandaya. In places where 

 they are of Maflgguaflgan descent, as is often the case on the upper Agusan, on the Manat, 

 on the upper Ihawan and tributaries, and on the upper Salug, their clothes resemble those of 

 their poor progenitors. In the middle Agusan (including the Wa-wa, Kasilaian, lower Argawan, 

 lower Umaiam, lower Ihawan, Hibung, and Simulau Rivers) the dress may be called character- 

 istically Manobo. 



THE USE OF BARK CLOTH 



The use of bark cloth 2 in a region situated somewhere between the headwaters of the Liba- 

 ganon and the Sabud, a western tributary of the Ihawan, was reported to me. My informants, 

 both on the Salug River and on the Umaiam River, spoke of the people of that locality as true 

 Manobos, very dark in color, and wearing bark clothes. If this report is correct, and I am inclined 

 to give credence to it, it is probably the only case at the present time of the use of bark cloth in 

 Mindanao, excepting perhaps among the Mananuas. 



DRESS AS AN INDICATION OF RANK 



There are no characteristic dresses by which the rank or profession of the wearer is indicated 

 except that of the warrior chief. Female priests very frequently may be distinguished by a prod- 

 igality of charms, talismans, and girdle pendants, as also by a profuseness of embroidery on the 

 jacket, but such lavishness is not necessarily an infallible sign of their rank as priestesses but 

 rather of their wealth. Neither is it a mark of their unmarried condition, for in Manoboland, as 

 in other parts of the world, the maiden loves to display her person to good advantage and for 

 that reason decks herself with all the finery of which she may be the possessor. 



Slaves may be recognized by the wretchedness of their clothes. 



DRESS IN GENERAL 



The man's dress invariably consists of long loose trousers or of close-fitting breeches, and of 

 a moderately tight-fitting, buttonless jacket. These two articles of dress are supplemented by 



• Pirki. 'A-ta-hin. 



44 





