“Entwined Spheres: Mats and Baskets as Containers, Conveyors and Costumes” Exhibit
The “Entwined Spheres: Mats and Baskets as Containers, Conveyors and Costumes” Exhibit, inaugurated in 2017, is a project in partnership with the Office of Senator Loren Legarda.
It features one of the oldest and most diverse forms of craft work in the Philippines, the baskets and mat weaving, and showcases a huge collection of old mats from various indigenous groups in the country and baskets that are used by the natives in many different and surprising ways.
Check out “National Museum of Anthropology“
It shows different mats and baskets and how they were used by our ancestors, whether being a simple accessory or costume piece, containers for both secular and sacred objects, for fishing, farming and in other aspects of life.
The exhibit also explores how different ethnic groups in the country are connected and are similar to each other through basketry.
Among the mats from the National Ethnographic Collection featured in this case, the oldest gathered from field research is a 1946 Tagbanua mat from the late anthropologist Harold C. Conklin.
The most recent are those collected last year from the weavers from Sama, Tawi-Tawi and Basey, Samar who came to the National Museum of Anthropology to give weaving demonstrations.
Bubu (Ibanag fish trap)
It also features the largest baskets in the National Ethnographic Collection: the 222 cm. long x 68 cm. deep bubu (fish trap) by the Ibanag tribe of Cagayan and the 150 cm. high x 200 cm. deep bukag (Tagalog rice storage),
A cradle from the Itawes tribe of Cagayan
It also displays the smallest, buon-buon (Hanunuo betel chew container), H 2 x D 5.5 cm, each strip measures 0.1 cm.
Woven Head Costume
“Entwined Spheres: Mats and Baskets as Containers, Conveyors and Costumes” Exhibit: 4/F, National Museum of Anthropology, Agrifina Circle (or Teodoro Valencia Circle, adjacent to the National Museum of Fine Arts building),Padre Burgos Drive, Rizal Park, Ermita, Manila. Tel: (02) 8528-4912 (02) 8527-1232 (Ethnology Division) and (02) 8527-0278. E-mail: nationalmuseumph@gmail.com and nationalmuseumph.anthropology@gmail.com. Open Tuesdays to Sundays, 10 AM – 5 PM. Admission is free.