One of the eminent products that the province of South Cotabato has become celebrated for is the T'nalak weaving. A unique weaving that illustrates geometric patterns depicting both art and a definite paradigm of culture dreamt to life by the T'boli people , an ethnic tribe of the province.
T’nalak is not some magical cloth created out of thin air of the mountains around Lake Sebu, where the T’boli live. It is born out of long and tedious work, of silences in the house when children are off to play, amid the smoke of the hearth that fills the longhouse when the meal is cooking. The T’boli believe that the production of good quality T’nalak requires the presence of Fu Dalu, sometimes personified as a spirit with white hair. But Fu Dalu chooses whose loom to grace with its presence. Those who do not adhere to the old ways, who have exchanged their bamboo baskets for the convenience of plastic, for instance, or who do not observe the abstinence required for certain pattern, they are not visited by the spirit of the abaca.
T'nalak weaving
T'nalak cloth
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