Painted Abaca Textiles in the Lake Lanao Region: A Lost Hybrid Surface Tradition

This article examines a dispersed corpus of painted abaca textiles associated with the Meranaw of Mindanao and argues that they constitute a distinct, now largely lost, textile surface tradition. Drawing on close material analysis of examples held in major museum collections in the United States and Europe, alongside fieldwork conducted in the Lake Lanao region in March 2026, the study demonstrates that these textiles were produced through a hybrid system combining painting, wash application, selective exclusion, and pattern transfer. Rather than aligning with wax-resist batik traditions, these textiles reveal a painterly system more closely related to South Asian kalamkari. The article further situates abaca (Musa textilis) as a uniquely Philippine material whose historical surface potential has been under-recognised.