AN IMPORTANT CRAFT IN THE YAKAN COMMUNITY

Yakan Weaving

Yakan hand loomed fabrics are know for their use of bold colors and geometric patterns. The traditional Yakan art of weaving originated from the island of Basilan, and there is no better place to witness this living art than in the Yakan Homeland of Lamitan, Basilan. There are different categories of a Yakan cloth. Ambalang has mastered all these, although her artistry and craftsmanship are best expressed in the bunga sama, sinalu’an, andseputangan.

TRADITION

All Yakan women in the past were trained in weaving. Long ago, a common practice among the Yakan was that, when a female was born, the pandey, traditional midwife, would cut the umbilical cord using a wooden bar called bayre (other Yakan pronounce this as beyde). That bar was used for ‘beating-in’ the weft of the loom. By thus severing of the umbilical cord, it was believed that the infant would grow up to become an accomplished weaver. This, and all other aspects of the Yakan weaving tradition, is best personified by a seventy-three-year-old virtuoso from the weaving domicile of the Yakan in Parangbasak, Lamitan City: Ambalang Ausalin. (Pasilan, 2016)

HISTORY

The armed conflicts in Basilan from the 70's to the 90's pushed the Yakan tribes to flee to Zamboanga City where the Yakan art of weaving took temporary refuge. For a while, Yakan fabrics have become synonymous with Zamboanga City through the Yakan settlement in Upper Calarian.

With the renewed peace and progress in Lamitan, the art of Yakan weaving is once again thriving in its native land. Through the support of the local government of Lamitan, the industry of weaving has created jobs to many Yakan women. Some of the Yakan fabrics made in Lamitan are currently being shipped to Zamboanga City to be sold at the Yakan Weaving Village

YAKAN WEAVING METHOD

Bold Colors and Geometric Patterns

Yakan weavers, like Apuh Ambalang, would use the tennun or the body tension loom or the back strap tension loom where the weaver sits on the floor with the loom being controlled by her body. Yakan looms can be small or large depending on the type of cloth or design to be woven, and they can be rolled up, carried, and easily set up. The rolled-up warp can be held up in one of the beams at a traditional home. The weaver sits on the floor before the loom with a belt on her waist called awit also called ikus and a warp beam, deddug, suspended on a house beam, diagonally in front of her. She braces her feet against a piece of wood called tindakan, and uses her body to keep the warp threads taut and in place. The warp is wound eight to ten meters or longer, just enough to make it easy for setting up the loom inside the house in a process known among the weavers as peghani. The threads are pulled through a bamboo comb, sud, one at a time, in a procedure called nuwah, so that the threads will be evenly spaced.

The secret of an intricately woven cloth lies in the comb, sud dendam: the more the number of sticks that make up the comb, the closer its teeth, therefore, the tighter and more embossed or lifted the designs will be. The pattern or design is made by counting the threads of the loom for each row. Each row is bundled with a separate piece of yarn or sack thread, tabid, so it can be used throughout the length of the loom. This process is called megpeneh . In this way the whole pattern is pre-programmed. This method is used in almost all cloth designs except for the seputangan. The sellag or thread for the background color of the woof is wound on a stick called anak tulak that can turn into a bamboo shuttle called tulak. A proficient weaver would require a lesser number of threads in the tulak, which they would refer as “sellag mintedde” or a single weft thread, resulting to an embossed and tight cloth. Thicker threads that make up the pattern called “sulip” are placed in between the warp threads as the pattern requires.