The weavers in T’boli community in South Cotabato are often called ‘dream weavers’ since they are highly devoted to Fu Dalu, who bestowed them with the great designs and patterns in their own sacred textile that called ‘t’nalak’ that is often used as blankets, clothing and used in royal wedding ceremonies.

And the method they use in weaving is the ‘ikat’ method, a decorative dying technique. You can see that the style of it has several threads bound or knotted together at regular intervals, and then the entire mass of threads is submerged in a dye. The dye will be repelled by the knotted areas, revealing the pattern. To create a more intricate pattern, certain knotted threads can be unwound and the entire mass steeped in a different color.

This picture shows the ‘frieze’ and ‘plane’ patterns of a T’nalak. Images from Paterno et al. (2001) (photographed by Neil Oshima).