Magdalena Gamayo
Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan
(August 13, 1924)
Who is Magdalena Gamayo?
Magdalena Gamayo is known for being an “inabel” (Ilokano handwoven cloth) maker. Her skills started to develop at age 16 in the middle of World War II. Lola Magdalena was introduced to the traditional art of weaving using a simple contraption. Being able to produce quality fabric and beautiful design takes years of practice and patience. Magdalena Gamayo was self-taught in terms of creating patterns such as the “kusikos”, “inurutan”, and “sinansabong”. She has also taught herself to recreate designs even when she has only seen it once, which is a useful skill when there is no sample to follow while weaving. Her works have been described as rare and timeless. She is known for her higher-than-normal thread count, intricate designs, evenly spaced threads, and uniform weaves.
Magdalena Gamayo continues to share her knowledge and skills to the women of her community. There are more than a dozen women working in the weaving workshop that was built in her honor. Some are already learning the intricate designs of Lola Magdalena’s as they continue to weave alongside their mentor and other aspiring weavers.
What is Abel / Weaving?
History of weaving and Magdalena Gamayo
At 88 years old, Magdalena Gamayo has more reasons to look forward and beyond than back. “Lola Magdalena” knows she has lost the strength of her youth all in this sleepy town of Pinili, Ilocos Norte.
But she is self-assured and fulfilled that in the stage of her life when most of one’s memories fail, her hands stay nimble and her craft stays alive.
Lola Magdalena is an “inabel” (Ilokano handwoven cloth) maker. She started to develop her skill in hand-weaving cloth at the age of 16 in the heat of World War II. Her aunt introduced her to this traditional art of weaving using a simple contraption. But to produce fabric of quality and beautiful design takes years of honing one’s skill through practice and patience.
“Patience is needed in this job, because abel-weaving is really hard,” says Lola Magdalena, who is practically self-taught in terms of creating patterns such as the “kusikos” (spiral forms similar to oranges), “inuritan” (geometric design), and the most challenging “sinan-sabong” (flowers).
In 2012, her persistence and passion for inabel-making paid off. The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) honored her as a National Living Treasure (Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan).
Passing It On
Now, she spends her life honoring God for her talent by passing on her skills to the younger generation of weavers.
“I always pray to God to have more years to live because when I am gone, abel-weaving tradition might be lost,” she says teary-eyed. After a gaze at five middle- aged women in her home who she trains, she says: “I’m greatly confident that this tradition will continue.”
It is a small group she trains, composed of her cousin’s daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, and her neighbors, but Lola Magdalena knows there are more who wish to learn her methods and technique in abel-weaving so government support is important.
While she is gracious in giving lectures and personalized tutorials on the Iluko way of weaving at her home, Lola Magdalena underscores the need for patience and passion.
“Even if we only earn a small amount of money, the most important, is to showcase and preserve this rich culture of the Ilocanos,” she says.
Erlinda Gampong, 45, one of Gamayo’s students, agrees. “Following the complicated but attractive design is very, very challenging,” says Gampong. “Because just one mistake would result to a flawed design.”
To sustain the local loomweaving industry in Ilocos Norte, Governor Imee R. Marcos is bent in establishing an Abel Museum in Paoay, Ilocos Norte, where all the unique and original abel masterpieces will be exhibited.
The governor has been trying to revive and improve the Ilocano heritage crafts particularly the inabel through making it innovative and sellable such as the “Carry All Bag” a top-quality bag made of canvas and nylon-lining.
Last January 28, the governor handed over the P10,000 loans to 15 women loomweavers of Paoay for the purchase of raw materials for attractive inabel fabrics production.
HOW IMPORTANT IS WEAVING TO MAGDALENA GAMAYO?
It is important to keep traditions and ingenuity alive for future generations to see the culture and identity of any nation. In the Philippines, there are individuals who have gone beyond to preserve their practice and art.. There is more to weaving than knowing how to choose a quality thread and how to intuit thread placements on the loom. One must also know the proper tension to the threads so that the warp, or the lengthwise threads that make up the frame of the cloth, can sustain the punishing over-and-under insertion of the crosswise threads, known as the weft. To tie the warp threads too tightly to the anchoring pins would cause them to break easily and result in unsightly bumps in the fabric where the threads were knotted together; to tie the warp threads too loosely would result in the pattern coming apart. There is also a matter of keeping a steady rhythm so that the shuttle bearing the weft threads passes through the warp evenly to ensure a smooth finish. This complicated process is no big deal for computerized machines but imagine recreating the same process every day manually, relying only on instinct, practice, and innate skill. Like Lola Magdalena, they are the "finest traditional artists of the country, adopts programs that ensure the transfer of their skill to others and undertakes measures to promote genuine appreciation of and instill pride on the genius of the Manlilikha ng Bayan among citizens."
Magdalena has been relying on her instincts, practiced hands, and innate skills for years, starting at the age 16 when she learned the art of weaving from her aunt. She was never formally taught but picked up the art on her own by copying the patterns. At that time, every girl in her village knew how to weave, and there would be an informal competition among her cousins and friends as to who could weave the finest, who could be more consistent. Her father bought her her first loom at the age of 19; he obtained the sag’gat or hardwood himself and gave the task to a local craftsman. Her first loom lasted her at least 30 years, sustaining her through years of marriage and motherhood. When it was beyond repair, she considers herself lucky to have been able to buy a second hand one. Today, there are few locals who have the skills to put together a loom similar to the ones Magdalena uses: a sturdy wooden frame with three-foot pedals with wide horizontal beams to support the warp and an even longer lengthwise frame to keep the threads in place. It is different from the backstrap loom traditionally used in the Cordillera, where the warp is anchored to a stationary object on one end and to the weaver’s body on the other end.
Importance of Inabel to Ilocanos
The inabel is one of the many prides of the Ilocos region in the Philippines. “Abel” is the Ilocano word for weave, and “inabel” can be interpreted to mean any kind of woven fabric. In the world of weaving however, inabel is particularly used to refer to textile that is distinctly Ilocano in origin. It was in the 16th century during the Spanish regime when people from Ilocos Norte started to include their local products in the trading business of export and import or commonly known as barter system with the foreign countries, which included their hand woven cloth as their main product. Not long ago, weaving of the local textile has become the most perpetrated livelihood which most of the Ilocanos ventured into. To the Spaniards, the inabel, or Abel Iloco as they call it, has become the identity of the Ilocanos which in return brought to them a higher tax collection from the Filipinos as the proliferation of the local products has extended to the foreign land.
However, during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines, inabel weaving was put into halt as the Japanese saw the potential of the local product as the biggest competitor in the market. Because of this, the Japanese destroyed the pedal looms used for weaving the inabel, and the Ilocanos discontinued weaving the inabel in fears of the Japanese occupants. The inabel didn’t however as the Ilocanos went back into weaving inabel after the war. They began to innovate more techniques and incorporate new designs in the inabel. But due to the effects of modernization and globalization, imported cloths used for sewing clothes, blankets, and pillowcases replaced the inabel in the market. Soon, Ilocanos’ greatest treasure has started fading as more trendy products were appreciated. Even the youth started to disregard the ancient practice of weaving.
To date, there are only two municipalities in Ilocos Norte where “Panagabel” (Inabel weaving) are still being practiced and nurtured namely in Pinili town where the Gawad Manlilikha ng Bayan awardee Magdalena Gamayo lives, and in Paoay town. To keep the tradition of weaving alive, Charito Cariaga teaches Ilocanos particularly women in their town about the traditional techniques of weaving using the old-style pedal loom to pass the practice to the succeeding generations.
Tribe Culture
The Ilocos Norte that Magdalena Gamayo knows is only a couple of hours drive away from the capital of Laoag, but is far removed from the quickening pulse of the emergent city. Instead, it remains a quiet rural enclave dedicated to rice, cotton and tobacco crops. 2012 Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan awardee, Magdalena Gamayo still owes a lot to the land and the annual harvest. Despite her status as a master weaver, weaving alone is not enough.
Also, even though the roads are much improved, sourcing quality cotton threads for her abel is still a challenge. Even though the North is known for its cotton, it does not have thread factories to spin bales of cotton into spools of thread. Instead, Magdalena has to rely on local merchants with their limited supplies. She used to spin her own cotton and brushed it with beeswax to make it stronger, but after the Second World War, she now relies on a market-bought thread. She still remembers trading rice for thread, although those bartering days are over. A thread is more expensive nowadays and of poorer quality. Often, she has had to reject samples but often she has little choice in the matter. There are less local suppliers of thread nowadays, a sign that there is less demand for their wares, but nonetheless, the abel-weaving tradition in Ilocos remains strong, and there are no better artists who exemplify the best of Filipino abel weaving tradition than Magdalena Gamayo.
Recognition and Awards
Awarding of Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan 2012 to Magdalena Gamayo by President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III
Magdalena Gamayo meet and greet in Malacañang 2019