Plate XXXI. Fair grade Romblon mat.
Plate XXXII. Medium Romblon mat.
Buri sleeping mats are made from the northernmost part of Luzon, in the Bangui Peninsula, to the Sulu Archipelago. For the most part they are woven in small numbers here and there, in the different towns, sometimes for use in the household in which they are made, often for local trade in the barrios or municipalities. In nearly every province there is at least one town in which the production of buri mats reaches provincial commercial importance. A number of municipalities produce them for a fairly extensive trade with neighboring provinces. In most cases these are ordinary products, usually decorated with a few colors in lines or checks of dyed straws, either woven in or embroidered on the mat.
Plate XXXIII. High grade Romblon mat.
In one region, however, buri mats have reached such a degree of perfection in their weaving and decoration as to have become a distinctive product known throughout the Islands. These are the Romblon buri mats, and they are produced throughout the islands of Romblon. Their central market is the town of the same name. They are distinctive because of the fine white and colored materials used, and of the designs which are woven in them. In the designing, not only checks and line borders but also plaids appear, and many of the effects produced by floating straws are employed. The Romblon mat, moreover, is most noticeable because of the fancy weave, making a sort of open work along the border, for which these mats are unique. Romblon exports great quantities of mats varying in price from ₱0.25, to over ₱10, and in size from small mats for stands to large decorative mats which cover the sides of rooms.[4]
Good Sabutan Mat.