The Filipino word for “cloth” is tela.
téla
cloth
Elsewhere in the world, the pineapple is something to eat. But in the Philippines, it is also something to wear. Making cloth from pineapple leaves is an old art that very few people know how to do. The weavers of piña cloth are very old women who say nobody taught them how to do it. They learned simply by watching.
Piña cloth is fine and silky. It is so thin that it blows away with just a breath. It has a sheen brighter than silk. For all these, it is a very strong and sturdy cloth, as good as many years later as on the day when it was woven.
There is not always a lot of piña cloth at hand. It takes a lot of pineapple leaves to make enough thread. Besides, all the weaving is done by hand. The pineapple threads are too fine for any machine. On the hand loom, it takes some time to make a strip of piña cloth.
More than a hundred hears ago, the best-dressed girls of the Philippines always wore piña blouses and scarves. The blouses were called baro; the scarves where called panuelo.
By tradition, the wedding gown was made of piña. The bride carried a piña handkerchief with her name and her husband’s woven in.
Also by tradition, a baby’s baptismal gown is made of piña. So durable is piña cloth that a baptismal gown, if well kept, can be passed from generation to generation. Today’s baby is baptized in the same piña gown used by his grandfather.
