Although the silkworm is bred to some small extent in the country, the silk manufacture is not extensively carried on, as the market can so easily and quickly be supplied from China with any description of goods in demand. Some articles of dress are, however, successfully made by the Indians, to oppose the China silks in the market, such as tapiz for the women, and panjamas for the men.
In various parts of the country, the manufacture of earthenware is pursued to a small extent. It is generally of a very coarse description for cooking purposes, water-jugs, &c., and does not interfere with the sale of the finer China ware, with which the natives are supplied for most of their household purposes by the Chinese dealers in the article, that of China make being very much finer than any they have as yet produced in the country.
In the colours and patterns of their dresses the natives are great dandies; the women, as usual, being more particular in those affairs than the men. Very seldom, indeed, does a native Indian or Mestiza beauty sport the same saya for two gala days consecutively. And a very large proportion of their earnings are spent in self-adornment, their tanpipes, or wardrobes, being very well supplied with clothes, all of them of different patterns. Blue and purple appear to be the colours most admired, because, although the tastes and caprices of the people may vary in an infinite degree as to the patterns or styles of their dresses, they do not differ much in their choice of the colours which compose them. A dark complexioned beauty is never improved by a yellow dress; and any woman at all old or ugly looks hideous indeed when dressed in that colour. Apparently the Government were not ignorant of this when they imposed a heavy duty on blue, purple, or white articles of dress, and allowed yellow and other colours disliked by the natives to come into the country on the payment of a less duty. They have even gone the length of allowing yellow cotton twist of foreign manufacture to be imported duty free.
Truly this was very cunning of them—this apparent liberality to a foreign nation, ignorant that the colour would scarcely ever be used. Its affected moderation would most certainly tend to stop any complaints which might be made about the high duties imposed on our manufactures imported into the colony.
But perhaps the authorities had some design on the native beauties, when they held out such an inducement for them to wear unbecoming dresses. Who can say if the official who drew the scheme up had not a wife, jealous of the influence of some dark Indian beauty, to whom she thus held out the inducement of cheap dress, to disarm the power of her charms! Or, it may be, as the priests are at the bottom of most things in Spain, who can tell but their influence was exerted to get this law passed in the pious hope of inducing those feelings of self-abasement and humility which the sense of being ugly, or even plain-looking, generally induces among the fair?
CHAPTER XXVII.
Besides those already mentioned, there are several other branches of manufacture successfully pursued in different places throughout the country, although none of them are very extensive.
Among others, that of hat-making may be mentioned. It is practised principally at a village called Balignat, in the province of Bulacan; and is also carried on to a smaller extent in Pangasinan, Camarines, and Yloylo.
The hats are made from the cane, the fibres of which, employed in their construction, very much resemble the materials of those made at Leghorn, of straw. They are made both black and white, and are used almost universally by the native population, at times when the heat of the sun does not require the salacod as a protection to the head. These are made of cane also, but are much thicker, heavier, and wider, and are shaped like a flat cone, so that the rays of the sunbeams are deflected from it, in place of being concentrated on the brain, as they are by the shape of the European hat.
A large number of Balignat hats are exported to the Australian colonies, and to China and Singapore, as well as a few to the United States.