In the chapter on dress reference has been made to the elaborate and beautiful effects produced by the Mandáyas on abaká cloth. The Manóbo woman has no knowledge of the process by which such effects are obtained.
It is interesting to note that the two yarn beams are cut in such a manner as to emit a booming sound at each stroke of the batten. I have seen an additional internode attached to the end yarn beam in a vertical position, with a view to increasing the resonance. The object of these sounders is to call attention to the industry and assiduity of the weaver.
POTTERY
The whole pottery industry consists in the making of rude earthen pots out of clay. It is confined to places near which the proper clay is found. A piece of clay is kneaded and mixed with fine sand till it attains the proper consistency. A piece is then laid over a round stone and beaten gently till it becomes sufficiently dry and rigid to serve for a bottom to which clay is added strip by strip, at first thick but gradually thinned with the fingers, until the pot is completed. It is in the union of these strips that defects are liable to occur. Hence the best workers patiently sit for hours beating their pots with a little wooden mallet. The pots are then put into a hot fire and burnt several times till they become sufficiently brittle to resist the fire, but the manufacturers seem to lack a proper test, because the cracking of a new pot is an ordinary occurrence.
The pot is spherical in shape with a wide mouth and a neck which, by its incurving, makes it possible to hang it up by means of a piece of rattan when it is not in use. There may be a few indentations running around the neck for the purpose of decoration. It is customary to provide the pot with a crude cover, also made of sand and clay.
TAILORING AND MAT MAKING
Tailoring is such a simple affair in Manóboland that it hardly deserves mention. Whenever an imported needle of European or American make is not to be had, a piece of brass wire is filed down and an eye made in it. With the simple utensil and with a thread of abaká fiber, the garment is sewn with a kind of a transverse cross-stitch. When imported cotton is on hand, nearly all seams are covered with either a continuous fringe of cotton in alternate colors or with neat wavy stitches, all of which serve both to conceal the seams and to embellish the garment.
In making a garment the piece of cloth is folded into a rectangle which forms the body of the garment. A piece large enough to make the sleeves remains. No piece is thrown away, there being no superfluous clippings. All cutting is done with a bolo.4