Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture series

Cherubim Quizon, Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Social Work and Criminal Justice, Seton Hall University

The magical and spiritual power of red cloth has a long and complex story in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. The revolutionary reds in flags, banners and amulets that sustained indigenous bodies in colonial struggles have been broadly approached through the lens of history and philology. Depending on political exigency, they are associated with valor or insurrection; when approached as antiquities, they are valued as chiefly markers often mapped to the killing of men. How do these ideas hold up when understanding the significance of red cloth among indigenous peoples in Mindanao? Focusing on Bagobo textile practices, the paper suggests that the dye plant Morinda sp. when applied to indigenous thread creates conditions that metonymically and procedurally link redness with effort and efficacy that operates within a larger indigenous semantic category of prestige cloths. Comparing Mindanao textile practices to Indonesia and Malaysia suggest broader semantic implications. In seeking to expand semiogenesis beyond the anecdotal dependence on redness and bloodshed that has dominated the literature on Bagobo “warrior” textiles, this paper argues that perspectives from the domain knowledge of the women who make such cloths provides a more robust understanding of textiles as material culture practice in general, and the meanings that we can reasonably associate with indigenous cloth and dress in particular.