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MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/4 June) – This old woman wants to leave a legacy
to her tribe’s youth.
Rosita Into Salvo -- or Nanay to family, friends and relatives -- is one of Bukidnon’s silent Old Warriors
from the Talaandig tribe.
At 79, she vows to teach “until she can” about their tradition of mat-weaving, a craft she thought would have a growing demand but “there are only few remaining laborers."
“Either they are very old or they are dead,” she said in her house as she told her story of learning the skill and passing it on the younger generations.
Nanay Rosita wants to leave a legacy. MindaNews photo by Walter Balane She learned mat-weaving by watching elder relatives do it while she was growing up in post-World War II Malaybalay.
She knew it was valuable. Her mother used to weave rolls of abaca fiber in exchange for clothing from the Macabebe, a trading people from Luzon.
“My mother would weave early mornings, even without light,” she said.
But she said she learned the craft on her own, way after her mother died in 1939 when she was nine. She said she learned just by watching and doing it.
“One day, one of my aunts asked me if I already know, then I just told her, yes, and showed them my work,” she said.
Salvo admitted that mat-weaving for her is not a livelihood. It is a way of life.
“I do it for my family. I do it so we don’t have to buy it from others, we could always use some time to weave,” she said.
Salvo was a farmer in her younger years. Their farm was source of rice, corn, vegetable, root crops, and spices. They grew the food that they cooked.
She later became an active member of the Barangay Health Workers as a mananabang or birth attendant in Impalambong, one of the barangays in Poblacion Malaybalay.
She said weaving intertwined with her motherhood. She did most of her weaving during her pregnancies and after giving birth.
And of course, for her, weaving is a natural way to transmit values and information.
It was customary for the women in her time to sit together in a hall in their old house to weave mats, mosquito nets and others while they talk about life in general, about the things ordinary people like her come across. “We don’t really talk about big and serious things,” she said.
She said they shared experiences, pain, laughter, and even stories to children when they join the early morning weaving sessions.
But Salvo admitted that her tribe has neglected to train their youth on the craft of mat-weaving as time passed by.
One of her aunts, she recalled, was a far better weaver “but she died already and her children did not learn to weave at all,” she laments.
The difference in the world then and the world now, apparently, has affected the passing on of the craft to the younger generations. Before, people were forced to weave mats because there were fewer alternatives. “Now there are plastic mats, foams, and other sleeping materials you can buy in stores or from vendors,” she said.
Salvo thinks that teaching the younger generations how to weave is an obligation among the elders of the tribe. And it is not just for cultural reasons.
She said the youth has to be taught about hard work against addiction to “anything instant,” making them more adept to being employed than being creators of products.
“It is important to teach children to learn how to do things the hard way. Intelligence is not enough. The youth has to learn skills to live with,” Salvo said.
She said the youth can do better if only they do it. “They can improve on our creations,” she said as she showed a bag woven from sudsud, the same scarce grass material used for mats.
The grass grows locally, but supply is a challenge to weavers because they are not cultivated. She said apart from lack of interest among the youth, another challenge is production of sudsud to cope with the demand.
But she said they have to campaign for cultivation of the grass and gather more young weavers.
“When time comes that the jobs are gone, at least the youth have something to do to survive. They have to learn how to create things,” she added.
Friends from Pat-pat, a nearby barangay, weave bags as a means of livelihood, she said.
Salvo said there is need for people to learn to be self-sustaining, like how to plant the food they eat. She rebuked the dependence of the younger generations to ready-to-cook materials or buying from the market. There are a lot of impurities on vegetable produced from large farms, she warned.
But she admitted that in terms of cooking, she was lured into an instant flavor mix. “It is like magic. I was hit by the magic,” she confessed.
For her, there is nothing wrong about tasting the good things about life. “Since these things are now available, then we must take advantage.”
But she said people must take grasp of basic things. “Natural is still better,” she said.
She said the mats made by the women of her tribe and other tribes are natural sleeping materials hand woven from God-given materials. That’s why she has pledged to teach mat weaving despite her old age.
Rea Noar Tongnar, her granddaughter, said Salvo has been a tireless advocate who made herself available despite her limitations.
Talking to Salvo was difficult with her hearing impairment.
“But just make sure she can read your lips. Then she can tell you her piece, loud and clear,” Tongnar said of her lola.
Early this year, Salvo was tapped by the Impalambong Tribal Youth Association to teach at least 23 young people and a few middle-age mothers from their tribe about the art of mat-weaving.
Children as young as 7 and mothers as old as 45 attended the training organized to help educate the youth about their culture and livelihood.
She said they have to learn the simple patterns first as she showed samples of the first outputs of her students in mat weaving.
Salvo also joined the “Banig Festival” held last year which showcased the works of Malaybalay’s 10 remaining mat-weaving “cultural masters.”
She said time has passed, people have changed with technology, but there are still things that have to be kept and taught.
“I thought I already forgot how to weave. I’m now very old, but it’s never too late”. (Walter I. Balane / MindaNews) |
