Weaving is one of our most precious living traditions which also originated during pre-colonial times. It is done by interlacing the strips or strands of the material or by winding in and out or from side to side through a warp on a loom or manually. Different weaving techniques and patterns are also used in exquisite mats, baskets, textiles and accessories with vivid colors and intricate geometric designs.

It is a long-time cottage industry of the Province of Antique. Hand stripped products are artistically crafted with highly imaginative designs and attests to the artistry and required superb skills to accomplish the intricacy evident on the woven work of art.

Buri weaving in Diclum, Tobias Fornier

Diclum is a small barangay located in the southern part of Antique, and about an hour from the capital town of San Jose de Buenavista. The area is surrounded with Buri Palm (Corypha Elata), a palm from which three kinds of fibers are obtained namely buri, raffia and buntal. The palm has large fan-shaped leaves with stout petioles ranging from two to three meters in length. It reaches a height of 20 to 40 meters and its trunk attains a diameter of 1 to 1.5 meters. Buri palm is also considered one of the most important palms, next to coconut in terms of economic and industrial performance.

The buri leaf is the most versatile material used in handicraft industry. The weavers simply strip off the leaves and dry under the sun and it can be easily dyed and woven into many shapes.

For now, the buri palm weavers are able to innovate and create new products such as hats, colorful mats, bags, coin purses, pen holders, window blinds, jewelry boxes, table accessories, fashion accessories and other novelty items. Thus, conventional designs and motifs still reflect the creativity and craftsmanship of the weavers.

The Diclum’s buri weaving industry is being represented by the Buri Handicrafts Association Inc. (BUHAI) Rural Enterprise Development Project assisted by the Antique Development Foundation.

Bariw Weaving in Sto. Rosario, Pandan

Locals claimed that the town’s name “Pandan” also derived from this plant.

Sto. Rosario, a village in Pandan, is located in the northern part of Antique, is 124 kilometers away from San Jose de Buenavista. It is bounded by the Municipality of Libertad in the north and the Municipality of Sebaste on the south. The municipality is a mixture of upland and coastal areas and abundantly surrounded by bariw or pandan palm.

Bariw(Pandanus Copelandii) is a palm-like tree is also called screw pine because of its long, spiky fronds that can be woven after drying and pounding. The height usually reaches 3 to 9 meters. The leaf area is about 2 to 3 meters long by 5 to 8 centimeters wide and is provided with spines along the margins. The spines are coarse and relatively distant near the tip. The leaves are smooth and cool compared to other palm leaves and waxy, thus, it speaks to remain naturally brown. Bariw or Pandan Palm abundantly surrounded the coastal areas of

The economic value of bariw is in the leaves. The Sto. Rosario weavers are mostly women. They are adept at cutting and drying bariw leaves and deftly manipulate the twine or strips of bariw and turn them into imaginable handicrafts such as coarse and fine baskets, mats, carpets, bags, trays, accessories and other novelty items. They also fuse it with innovative designs in order to compete with the contemporary trend in the market.

Bariw products such as bags, wine holders and coasters crafted in Sto. Rosario Village in Pandan. ADF, the marketing arm of the weavers innovate their design by combining leathers and colored beads in order to compete the contemporary trend.

Presently, the Antique Development Foundation Inc. is the marketing arm of bariw producers. The foundation strongly helps the Sto. Rosario weavers as well as the local communities to overcome poverty by combining traditional skills with our natural resources to produce and promote quality products to both local and international market.

Banig (Mat) Weaving in Libertad

The Municipality of Libertad has pioneered in banig weaving. Situated in the northernmost municipality of Antique, is bounded on the North-Northwest by the municipalities of Nabas and Malay, Aklan; on the South by Pandan Bay and on the West by the Municipality of Pandan, and on the North-Northeast by the Municipality of Buruanga, Aklan.

Their upgraded and complex designs made their products high on demand in local and foreign market. The manugbanig, a person who weaves the banig thrives to establish the unique identity and trademark of existence of the town.

Banig is commonly defined as a humble mat one spreads on a wooden or bamboo floor at night when one goes to sleep and in the morning, is simply rolled to be unfurled again in the evening. With arduous process, the weaver begins with the removal of thorns in a bariw plant and finally twined the dried strips into a mat.

This also involves a sequential order of steps which leads to building a unique and geometric pattern and rhythm.

For the past eight years, the Libertadnon have held banigan festival to highlight banig weaving demonstrations, bariw-based products competition for hats, bags, slippers and banig gowns. It is celebration to pay tribute to the town’s mat weavers who have preserved the priceless legacy of their forefathers.

Patadyong Weaving in Bagtason

The patadyong weaver fuses different colors of threads to capture the hues of nature; reveal personal status and for trendy look.

Barangay Bagtason in Bugasong is famous for hand-woven cloths called patadyong. This barangay is where the yano (plain patadyong), pili or pinilian (patadyong with embroidery) and tubao (handkerchief) are the most sought and saleable products.

The weaving of patadyong is done by entwining threads of various colors to create a folksy-colorful fabric through a wooden-made hand loom locally known as tiral or habulan. The process has remained unchanged throughout recorded history despite the invention of machinery for weaving.

The manughabul, a person who is good for at craft; use polyester threads. They fuse different colors of the ready-made threads. The weaversplay the mixture of earthy green, sunny yellow, sea blue, violet bush, and blush pink to capture the colors of nature and to reveal personal status, and trendy looks.

Hence, patadyong weavingis still a stable industry here in Antique which is gradually becoming a fashion clothing material. This is not so surprising since in early days, it was fashionable for women to use the patadyong especially the binalbal, or stiffened cloth. To stiffen the patadyong, it has to be soaked in starch and paddled until it becomes stiff.

The patadyongsare now used as material for hankies, shawls, table runners, hats, wallets and bags.

Eventually, the patadyong will conquer the national market; thus, bringing the Antiqueños ingenuity in weaving known to many.

Paper weaving in Igburi, Patnongon

Paper weaving is a simple craft that can lead to making many different types of projects; with relatively few supplies and is also fairly inexpensive. In Barangay Igburi, a village in Patnongon most of the locals engage in paper weaving during their siesta time. It is an income generating project of Cubay Igburi Paper Weaving Association organized in 2003.

They simply entwine and layer the strips of old newspaper or magazines in different ways and enhance the background with certain features such as baskets, trays, small souvenir hats and accessories.

Basically the finished product is painted white or any desired color and accented with colorful dried grasses, flowers, dyed corn husk and metallic dusts.

Rattan Weaving in Valderrama

craft peddler from Valderrama

It is located in the interior of the eastern portion of Antique and it is 54 kilometers away from the capital, san Jose de Buenavista. It is bounded in the west by the Municipality of Bugasong, southwest by the Municipality of Patnongon; south by the Municipality of San Remigio and east by the Municipality of Lambunao in the province of Iloilo.

Rattans dominate the place. Rattan is a kind of palm which is a stout and robust climber. It has hooks in the midrib of its leaves that it uses to remain attached to trees on which it grows. It is mostly found in tropical countries and grows mainly in the mountainous areas. The stems are cut into strips, and they easily bend and hold its shape when dry.

The suludnon or upstream people proudly carry and peddle their finished products in the capital town to hook up buyers. Hammocks, bags, food covers, cloth storage and baskets are their most saleable products.

Bamboo Weaving in Barbaza

Bamboo craft is the One-Town-One-Product of Barbaza. It is located in the central part of the province and is composed of 22 upland and 17 lowland barangays where bamboo thrives abundantly in the place.

Bamboos are woody grasses that grow up to 15 meters tall, with grass-like leaves and has an elongated tubular stems. Usually grows in warm, moist, mountainsides and lowland areas, bamboo is both decorative and useful. An incredibly versatile material, the strips of the stalks are plaited, unevenly absorbs dye, can be completely hand-woven in thin or large strips or it can be framed or ribbed into baskets, bags, mats and trays.

They interweave bamboo strips to create some important farm stuffs such as makan(a mat commonly use for drying palay), kararaw(panning implement), tabungos (use for storage of legumes, palay and other crops), pugadan(laying basket for chicken), alat(bamboo basket) and taun(fish trap). Also to mention the towns of Sibalom, Patnongon and a few barangays in Tibiao also engage in weaving bamboo and also created the same crafts.

Nito Weaving in Sebaste

innovative nito wares in Sebaste, Antique

Proud of their innovative nito handicrafts, Sebaste is located in the northern part of Antique.

Nito is a climber, slender, thin-stemmed vine which grows wildly in mountainous areas. Its outer skin is usually woven without curing and drying. Its natural colors vary from green to golden brown to black.

Today, nito wares are highly valued for its fine spliced weaving and natural color variations and the Sebastehanon nito weaver applies his traditional skills and materials to novel designs for table wares such as placemat, coaster, napkin holder, tray, condiment holder, fruit holder, storage canisters and home accessories.

Piña Weaving in Tibiao

An agricultural municipality is located in the northern part of Antique; and is blessed with several rustic, unspoiled and panoramic beauties of its surroundings; and proudly elated of its finest hand loomed piña products.

Piña weaving requires a lot of patience. The delicate fiber is naturally extracted from the leaves of pineapple. Pineapple (ananas sativa) is a tropical plant usually grows up to 4 feet high and produces rosettes of long, stiff and spiny leaves. The fibers are collected from the leaves. They are creamy white, shiny, durable and fine quality. Basically, the weavers cut and scrape the fiber by hand, dry, comb and tie the fibers from end to end and it can be woven.

Piña cloth is soft, delicate, embroidered with intricate designs and is the finest and highly prized of all the hand-woven cloths. Similar to jusi, it is also the best choice fabric for the barong tagalog and ternos. In order to vie the new trends and market demands they also crafted table runners, linens, shawls and kerchief.

Different weaving patterns use in weaving buri, bamboo, rattan, nito, bariw and paper

I would like also to mention that in a small village of Salvacion in Sibalom, the weaver combines the buri and nito. They specialize in making pen holders, napkin holders, bag, coin purse and cell phone holders.

The atis (dark-skinned indigenous people) from Tina Village in Hamtic traditionally weave buri and combines it with nito as decoration. They proudly created buon-buon (coin purse); libon (a buri bag) and accessories are some rare products to collect with extra-ordinary design.

The village in Cadahug, Laua-an also is also famous of their colorful and finest buri hats. The weaver of this barangay also focuses in creating buri boxes, napkin holders, mats and other accessories. Their buri creations are saleable in Boracay Island and in some souvenir shops nationwide.

We hope that through patience, determination, and creativity of the weavers, the weaving industry in Antique will continue to flourish and produce high-valued quality products. The sustainability of this living tradition also depends on the willingness of the young generation; and the skillful hands that weave are destined to make this Antiqueño heritage alive.