Amakan, also known as sawali in the northern Philippines, is a type of traditional woven split-bamboo mats used as walls, paneling, or wall cladding in the Philippines. [1] They are woven into various intricate traditional patterns, often resulting in repeating diagonal, zigzag, or diamond-like shapes. The term "sawali" is more properly defined as twilled weaving patterns. The term can also be applied to baskets and banig (soft woven mats made from pandan leaves, buri palm straw, abaca, or sedges), which also use the same weaving patterns. [2] [3] Amakan panels are commonly confused with pawid (nipa panels), which are made from thatched leaves.
Amakan are used as walls in the traditional nipa huts (bahay kubo) of the Philippines. They are lightweight and porous, allowing air circulation to keep buildings cool in the hot tropical climate. The porosity also balances pressure inside the house during strong winds, minimizing roof damage. [4] Amakan needs to be treated before installation. They are soaked in seawater, dried, and then usually (but not always) varnished. They are usually affixed to a wooden framework, then battened with bamboo or coco lumber. [5]
Amakan is associated with lower income rural housing because it is inexpensive and easy to replace. It is not uncommon for amakan to also be used as a design element (usually as cladding or paneling) in modern Filipino architecture to portray a rustic, traditional and tropical aesthetic. [4] [6] [7] It also ecologically sustainable because it is made with bamboo. [5]
A simpler method of making panels from leaves is called pawid, which is simply thatching. It predominantly uses nipa palm leaves, and is the origin of the name of the nipa hut. But it can also use other materials like coconut leaves, anahaw leaves, and even cogon grass. They are made by simply folding the leaves once around a split bamboo stick and then sewing them together near the base. They are most commonly used as roofing, with the panels layered over each other so the water runs down the leaves and away from the inner roof. They are constantly replaced as the panels get damaged. [8] [9]
A similar weaving tradition is called sulirap, surilap, or salirap among Visayans; [10] [11] and sulirap, selirap, or sayrap among the Tausug, Yakan, and Sama-Bajau people. It uses an entire coconut palm leaf split lengthwise along the midrib (rachis). Then both halves are positioned with the leaflets in between them. The leaflets are then intricately woven into various patterns and designs to join the two split parts together. This results in a lengthwise woven panel with the split midrib providing the upper and lower border. It is used similarly as amakan and sawali: as cheap walls, roofs, awnings, or temporary shade. This method, modified slightly, can also be used to make traditional baskets. [12] [13]
Corypha or the gebang palm, buri palm or talipot palm is a genus of palms, native to India, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, New Guinea and northeastern Australia. They are fan palms, and the leaves have a long petiole terminating in a rounded fan of numerous leaflets.
Basket weaving is the process of weaving or sewing pliable materials into three-dimensional artifacts, such as baskets, mats, mesh bags or even furniture. Craftspeople and artists specialized in making baskets may be known as basket makers and basket weavers. Basket weaving is also a rural craft.
The bahay kubo, kubo, or payag is a type of stilt house indigenous to the Philippines. It often serves as an icon of Philippine culture. The house is exclusive to the lowland population of unified Spanish conquered territories. Its design heavily influenced the Spanish colonial-era bahay na bato architecture.
A palapa is an open-sided dwelling with a thatched roof made of dried palm leaves. It is very useful in hot weather and, therefore, very common on Mexican beaches and deserts.
The arts in the Philippines reflect a range of artistic influences on the country's culture, including indigenous art. Philippine art consists of two branches: traditional and non-traditional art. Each branch is divided into categories and subcategories.
The Culture of Basilan are derived from the three main cultural ethnolinguistic nations, the Yakan, Suluanon Tausug and the Zamboangueño in the southern Philippines. Both Yakans and Tausugs are predominantly Muslim, joined by their kin from the Sama, Badjao, Maranao, and other Muslim ethnolinguistic groups of Mindanao, while the Zamboangueños are primarily Christian, joined by the predominantly Christian ethnolinguistic groups; the Cebuano, Ilocano, Tagalog and others. These three main groups, however, represent Basilan's tri-people or tri-ethnic group community.
Reed mats are handmade mats of plaited reed or other plant material.
A woven mat is a type of mat that is created by weaving and may include:
A pakudos is a visual motif used by the Hanunuo Mangyan people of Mindoro in the Philippines. Pakudos are characterized by symmetrical, aesthetic, and orderly utilization of lines and space with equal utilization of vertical and horizontal composition. The word pakudos was coined from cruz, the Spanish word for cross. The pakudos motif is a common element in Mangyan embroidery and crafts. It is also featured on the official seal of San Jose, Occidental Mindoro.
A torogan is a traditional ancestral house built by the Maranao people of Lanao, Mindanao, Philippines for the nobility. A torogan was a symbol of high social status. Such a residence was once a home to a sultan or datu in the Maranao community. Nowadays, concrete houses are found all over Maranaw communities, but there remain torogans a hundred years old. The best-known are in Dayawan and Marawi City, and around Lake Lanao.
The field of Indigenous architecture refers to the study and practice of architecture of, for and by Indigenous people. It is a field of study and practice in the United States, Australia, Aotearoa, Canada, Arctic area of Sápmi and many other countries where Indigenous people have a built tradition or aspire translate or to have their cultures translated in the built environment. This has been extended to landscape architecture, urban design, planning, public art, placemaking and other ways of contributing to the design of built environments. The term usually designates any culture-specific architecture: it covers both the vernacular architecture and contemporary architecture inspired by the enculture, even when the latter includes features brought from outside.
Indigenous materials are materials that are naturally and locally found in a specific place such as timbers, canes, grass, palms, and rattan. Other indigenous raw materials in the country that are commonly known and used creatively in crafts and decoration are capiz, pearls, corals, and seashells, being an archipelago naturally abundant in beaches and marine resources.
Pusô or tamu, sometimes known in Philippine English as "hanging rice", is a Filipino rice cake made by boiling rice in a woven pouch of palm leaves. It is most commonly found in octahedral, diamond, or rectangular shapes, but it can also come in various other intricately woven complex forms. It is known under many different names throughout the Philippines with numerous variations, but it is usually associated with the street food cultures of the Visayan and Moro peoples.
Bambooworking is the activity or skill of making items from bamboo, and includes architecture, carpentry, furniture and cabinetry, carving, joinery, and weaving. Its historical roots in Asia span cultures, civilizations, and millennia, and is found across East, South, and Southeast Asia.
Bahay na bato, also known in Cebuano as balay na bato or balay nga bato and in Spanish as casa Filipino, is a type of building originating during the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. It is an updated version of the traditional bahay kubo of the Christianized lowlanders, known for its use of masonry in its construction, using stone and brick materials and later synthetic concrete, rather than just full organic materials of the former style. Its design has evolved throughout the ages, but still maintains the bahay kubo's architectural principle, which is adapted to the tropical climate, stormy season, and earthquake-prone environment of the whole archipelago of the Philippines, and fuses it with the influence of Spanish colonizers and Chinese traders. It is one of the many architecture throughout the Spanish Empire known as Arquitectura mestiza. The style is a hybrid of Austronesian, Spanish, and Chinese; and later, with early 20th-century American architecture, supporting the fact that the Philippines is a result of these cultures mixing. Its most common appearance features an elevated, overhanging wooden upper story standing on wooden posts in a rectangular arrangement as a foundation. The posts are placed behind Spanish-style solid stone blocks or bricks, giving the impression of a first floor. Still, the ground level contains storage rooms, cellars, shops, or other business-related functions. The second floor is the elevated residential apartment, as it is with the bahay kubo. The roof materials are either tiled or thatched with nipa, sago palm, or cogon, with later 19th-century designs featuring galvanization. Roof styles are traditionally high pitched and include the gable roof, hip roof, East Asian hip roof, and the simpler East Asian hip-and-gable roof. Horses for carriages are housed in stables called caballerizas.
Pandanus simplex is an economically important species of Pandanus (screwpine) endemic to the Philippines. It is commonly known as karagumoy or kalagimay. Its leaves and fibers are used widely in the Philippines for thatching, ropes, and weaving various traditional handicrafts like baskets and mats.
Cabilao is a Philippine island in the Cebu Strait, part of Bohol Province. It is home to the only natural lake in the province: Cabilao Island Lake, also called Lake Danao or Lanao.
"Bahay Kubo" is a Tagalog-language folk song from the lowlands of Luzon, Philippines. In 1964, it was included in a collection of Filipino folk songs compiled by Emilia S. Cavan.
The buntal hat is a traditional straw hat from the Philippines woven from fibers extracted from the petioles of buri palm leaves. It is traditionally worn by farmers working in the fields and was a major export of the Philippines in the first half of the 20th century. It can also be paired with semi-formal barong tagalog as well as informal attire. Its main centers of production are Baliwag, Bulacan, and (historically) Sariaya and Tayabas in Quezon Province. Buntal hats produced in Baliwag are also sometimes known as balibuntal hats, and are regarded as superior in quality to other types of buntal hats.
Camiña Balay Nga Bato, formerly known as Avanceña House, is a century-old heritage house in the Arevalo district, Iloilo City, Philippines. It was built in 1865 and was designed by the first parish priest of Molo, Anselmo Avanceña, for Don Fernando Avanceña and his wife, Eulalia Abaja. It was then passed on from one family to another until it came under the Camiñas family.[1] It is now owned by the fourth generation of the original owners, Gerard Camiña, former director of the Land Transportation Office in Western Visayas, and his wife, Luth Camiña. The ancestral house was declared as an Important Cultural Property by the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) in 2015.