THE MANGYANS OP MINDORO. 143 



rule to see a woman with a cloth around the loins. Her ordi- 

 nary costume is a loin-cloth of beaten bark, a great mass of 

 woven ?iito and rattan wound around the abdomen, and a breast 

 band of nito and buri. The latter is not always worn, but no 

 part of the rest of the costume ever is dispensed with. The 

 loin-cloth is short and is passed both in front and behind over 

 two or three of the strands of the woven nito which is wrapped 

 about the abdomen. A red kerchief is sometimes worn around 

 the breasts instead of the buri band already described. 



The age at which children wear clothes varies from about 10 

 or 11 years near Abra de Hog to 5 or 6 at other places. Their 

 clothes are the counterpart in miniature of those worn by their 

 parents. 



I saw no evidence among the Mangyans anywhere of tattoo- 

 ing or scarification, or of teeth or body mutilations, except 

 perforations of the ears for the suspension or insertion of 

 ornaments. 



Hats are rarely worn. Of the few which I saw all but one 

 had been obtained by the Mangyans from their Tagalog neigh- 

 bors. The one exception, worn by a Mangyan working in a 

 clearing, was hewn out of a single piece of wood. It was made 

 so thin and of such light wood that it weighed very little more 

 than many woven hats. 



INDUSTRIES. 



The work of the Mangyans is devoted almost entirely to 

 gaining subsistence, but they have a few industries not directly 

 connected with the question of food. None of the people whom 

 I visited make pottery, although I was told there are Mangyans 

 in the hills west of Bongabong from whom cooking vessels are 

 sometimes obtained. They get most o# the pottery vessels 

 which they use from the Christian Filipinos in exchange for 

 camotes, maize, palai, and bananas. 



In the vicinity of Bulalakao the Mangyans plant cotton. The 

 process of converting this into cloth may be described briefly as 

 follows : 



The first task in preparing the cotton for weaving is the 

 removal of the seeds. A woman takes a small, hard, smooth 

 piece of wood about 50 centimeters long by 15 centimeters wide 

 and a piece of smooth bamboo about 40 centimeters long and 3 

 centimeters in diameter. She places the piece of wood on the 

 floor or on the ground and kneels in front of it with a basket of 

 cotton at her side. Then she takes a little of the cotton from the 

 basket, places it on the piece of wood, and rolls the bamboo over 



