Woman's upper garment

This blouse was collected by the Reverend Robert F. Black, who moved to Mindanao in the southern Philippines in 1902. During this period of US colonialism, large numbers of Protestant missionaries were sent to the Philippines. According to his granddaughter, Reverend Black was given a number of textiles; it seems likely that they were random gifts rather than a deliberate collection. When Reverend Black and his wife returned to the United States more than a decade later, the textiles were stored in a box in their attic. After the Blacks’ grandchildren inherited the box in early 2000, they donated the nearly pristine textiles to the Asian.

This short blouse is typical of women’s upper garments in the southern Philippines. Many textiles were woven of leaf fibers such as abaca, a type of banana plant. Women’s blouses are T-shaped, short-waisted, and often elaborately decorated with embroidery. They can be ornamented with beads, shell sequins, and glass buttons. The beadwork on the arms of this blouse depicts standing human figures.