T’boli Fashion

and Traditional Costumes

This is the example of T’boli Fashion and Traditional Costumes

•T'boli are known for their bright colored costumes, which they wear daily, unlike other tribes who wear

their costumes during tribal feasts or presence of visitors.

•Women wear K’gul yaha soung (plain black or dark navy blouse, tight fitting,

waist length, with opening down the front or the back), and their luwek (ankle-length tube skirt). Other

traditional garbs include K’gal nisif (embroidered blouse), fan de (skirt of red and/or black cloth), K’gal binsiurt (embroidered could with triangular

shell), and tredyung (black, pin-stripe linen skirt, mostly an heirloom).

Adornments or accessories worn by

T’boli women include:

Earrings

kawat (brass rings), b’ketot (round mirror with glass beads), nomong (chandelier-type with glass beads), and b’koku

(chandelier-type with triangular pieces of shells).

Kowal or beklaw

it consists of several strands of tiny, colored beads, suspended under the

chin, from the left ear-lobe to the right. It frames the face of the

women like a veil.

Necklace hikef (choker of pure beadwork, in black, red and while), l’mimot (hangs against the woman’s chest, with strands

of back and red tiny black beads), lieg (long, thick necklace with double-triple linked brass chain, has wide

tassels and beads at the ends. The most difficult accessory to acquire because this is considered an

heirloom.

GIRDLEShilot (3-inch wide brass chainmail), hilot t’noyong (a regular hilot with hawk bells)

that makes tinkling sound as a girl wearing it walks, and hilot l’minot (a solid

beadwork, with tiny red-white-back-yellow beads in dazzling designs).

Bracelets blonso (plain brass bracelet worn loosely on the wrist) and kala (also brass, worn tightly on the arm).

Ankletstugul (2-inch black band worn on upper

ankles), singkil linti (4-inch, worn loosely at the ankles), singkil babat

(like linti, but with decorations on the outer surface), and singkil sigulong (thick, hollow with pebbles to make

sound).

Ringst’sing (rings) comes in sets of five – the first, third and fifth of plain brass, and the second and fourth in carabao horn.

COMBS worn on the head to crown a

woman’s hairstyle -- su’wat blakang (bamboo).

HEADWEAR

kayab (a yard long wrapped loosely around their hairdo), s’long kinibang (a round salakot made of

bamboo strips, worn when working in the field), and bangat s’laong (2 long bands of solid beadwork,

with thick horsehair tassels at their ends, worn on special occasions and sometimes part of the T’boli

girl’s bride price).

The T’boli men also have their

own accessories. These include:

Kubul or an inchthick wooden ear plugs, worn onto

men’s ear lobes

ANGKUL worn usually by the Datus, which is a

piece of special cloth, gathered into a thick band and worn across the

chest.

Baho-ne-fet (bow and arrow)

tablos (made of bamboo and used for hunting board, deer, monkeys and big birds), senofil (looks like a

centipede at the end), slufang (used for smaller birds), and husong (think bamboo reed).

ONIT TEBED coat of woven bark-strips

SULIT (SPEAR)

buyus (made of rattan, with brass tip), soit (used for fish and snakes), and klouit (made

of rattan, with end like the sinofil.

Klung

rectangular wooden shields of about 16 by 30 inches.

bangkung (short, single-edge bolo with wooden handle, used for clearing trees), bagung (similar to

badung, but used for cutting wood), and tefok (used for cutting grass).

BOLOS

KABAHO (KNIVES) a generic name for different knives of

different shapes and sizes (but are mostly used by the women for defense and

utilitarian purposes).