The decoration of the trousers consists usually of fringes of imported cotton attached to all the seams except those around the waist. When it is considered desirable to make a more showy garment, embroidery of cotton yarn is added to the ends of the legs and to the part that covers the sides of the calves. The designs used depend on whether the wearer is of the central or of the upper Agúsan group.
THE GIRDLE
Around the waist of the garment is a hem through which passes a drawstring or girdle usually of braided abaká fiber dyed in the usual colors, with dependent extremities and tassels of imported cotton, also in the preferential colors. On the upper Agúsan one finds at times beads and even small bells added to the tassels. These are allowed to hang down in front.
The method of fastening the girdle is by the ordinary method of tieing[sic], or by another simple method, which consists in attaching near one end of the drawstring the operculum of a shell said to be found in the forests. At the other end of the girdle is a loop large enough to admit the operculum, which on being slipped into this loop retains the garment in position.
THE BETEL-NUT KNAPSACK12
12Pú-yó.
The knapsack is such an omnipresent, indispensable object that it may be considered a part of Manóbo raiment. It is a rectangular bag, on an average approximately 30 by 25 centimeters, with a drawstring for closing it. This string is nearly always of multicolored braided abaká fiber, and is a continuation of the strings by which the knapsack is suspended on the back from the shoulders, so that when it is carried in that position the mouth of it is always closed. The cloth of which it is made is the usual undyed abaká cloth, though among the upper Agúsan group one finds in use blue imported cloth or, perhaps more frequently, Mandáya cloth,13 imported especially for knapsacks.
13Called gú-au.