Types of Baskets:—Plates [LXVIII] and [LXIX] show the most common types of baskets made and used in this territory. Others of Igorot and Kalinga origin sometimes appear, but are seldom imitated by the local basket-makers.
Baskets 1 and 2 of Plate [LXVIII] are known as kaba, and are used principally to hold unthreshed rice, corn, and vegetables. Smaller baskets of the same form are for broken rice and cooked vegetables. The larger specimens are often made of rattan, while the smaller are usually of bamboo. Shallow bamboo baskets, pīdasen or alodan (Plate [LXIX], No. 2) are used as eating dishes for cooked rice.
Clothing is put away in covered oval or rectangular baskets, opīgan (Plate [LXIX], No. 4), while cotton is stored in long cylindrical baskets kolang (Plate [LXVIII], No. 3).
The pasikeng or lagpi(Plate [LXIX], No. 3), commonly called the “head basket,” is the chief basket of the men. It is made of rattan, and is supported on the back by means of bands which pass over the shoulders. In it are carried extra garments and all necessities for the trail. Recently some of the men have joined together two of these baskets by means of a wide, flat band, and this is fitted over the back of a horse or carabao,—an evident imitation of the saddle bags used by Spaniards and Americans. Men also carry small containers for their pipes and trinkets, or else make use of a traveling basket, such as is shown in Plate [LXIX], No. 5.
Rice winnowers and sieves (Plate [LVII]) and the fish-traps shown in [Fig. 13] conclude the list. No coiled baskets are made.
Aside from the decoration produced by variations in the weave, little ornamentation is found in the basketry from Abra, but the Tinguian of Ilocos Norte make and distribute large quantities of baskets with colored patterns. Colored vines are sometimes woven Page 424in, but the common method is to employ blackened bamboo, both in warp and weft.
The top of the basket is strengthened by two hoops of rattan or bamboo. One is placed outside, the other inside; on them is laid a small strip of the same material, and all three are sewed down by passing a thin strip of rattan through two holes punched in margin. This strip doubles on itself, encircles the rim, and after an interval again passes through two more holes, and so on around the entire basket. A square base, attached in the same manner as the rim, generally completes the basket. In the mountain districts near to Apayao, the bases of the smaller eating dishes are drawn in toward the center at four points, giving the effect of a four-pointed star.
Mats (ikamin).—Mats are used as beds, never as floor coverings. They are rectangular in form, usually about six feet long and three wide, and are undecorated. They are made from strips of pandanus in the laga weave (cf. p. 423).
Dyes.—In recent years analine dyes have come into favor in some villages, and a variety of colors appears in the articles made by their weavers, but the vegetable dyes used by the ancestors are still employed by most of the women. The commonest colors are blue, pink—“black red”—, red, and yellow.
Blue is ordinarily produced by placing the leaves and branches of the indigo plant, tayuni (Indigofera tinctoria)in water for a few days; then to boil them, together with a little lime. The thread is dipped in the liquid.