Artifacts
 

133 T'boli woman's shirt from Mindanao, 47 cm high. It has much embroidery on a dark blue (indigo-dyed) cotton shirt. The first and third row of images, counting from the bottom, seem abstract at first, but I think it is a clever design that shows the head of a woman at the top, then her neck and a straight wide line for her torso, with her elbows spread out and resting on her knees and her forearms and hands curled in. Below that she is sitting on the ground with her knees raised and legs spread out. The design is contrived to be symmetrical, and it can be viewed upside down also. It is a good example of abstract human figures in textiles. That was a tradition for textile designs of several different ethnic groups in Mindanao.