Subanen women earn money and self-esteem from woven art that celebrates God’s creation.
By Fr. Vincent Busch

Columban Sisters, priests, and lay missionaries have been working for decades in the remote mountain parish of Midsalip in northwest Mindanao. The parish was founded within the ancestral homeland of the Subanen tribe, who are the indigenous population of the area.

Since the 1950s, the Subanen homeland has seen an influx of settlers from the lowlands. First came the loggers followed by land-hungry farmers. With their powerful bulldozers, chainsaws and chemical fertilizers, they quickly exploited the forested hills and fragile soil of Midsalip. The shy Subanens retreated deeper into the dwindling forest, where they face a precarious future.

Fr. Vincent Busch is pictured with some of the girls in the Subanen Crafts Project, which Fr. Busch co-founded. The Creation Mandalas combine traditional Sabanen weaving and beading skills into a marketable piece of art.

Over the past two decades, the Subanen ministry has helped voice the concerns of the Subanen people. The Subanen Crafts Project owes a debt of gratitude to the Subanen ministry for its insights into Subanen culture and art.

At one level, the Subanen Crafts Project is simply an effort to supplement the income of Subanen women. Through this project, Subanen artisans are able to produce and market intricately woven crafts such as mobiles, wall hangings, pendants and earrings. The money they earn helps them continue their education and provide for their families.

But the story of the project has deeper meanings that honor the Subanen culture and the Subanens’ spiritual bond with their habitat.

The Art Of Creation
The project started in 2000 with Delia Hynson, who works with our lay mission program, and I administrating the project. We had four Subanen weavers: Rodilyn, Jovie, Marcelita and Andonie. Like other Subanen women, these women could weave beautiful baskets and make beaded necklaces. But these items, though attractive, could never compete commercially with the truckloads of baskets and jewelry produced in the workshops of Southeast Asia.

The project needed to produce crafted art that honored the traditional weaving and beading skills of the Subanens yet was new and distinctive.

In the Subanen Crafts Project, tribal women and girls learn to make these beautiful “Creation Mandalas,” which are similar to American Indian dreamcatchers.

When these eight images are assembled into a larger hoop, the result is like a small stained-glass window, like the ones in cathedrals. We called our new art “The Creation Mandala.”

Mandala simply means “sacred circle,” and just as the images in a cathedral’s window are meant to remind us of important events in the sacred story of Jesus, so too, the images in the Creation Mandala are meant to remind us of important events in the sacred story of creation.

The story of creation befits the deep spiritual bond that the Subanen people have with their habitat. I prepared an illustrated booklet that comes with each Creation Mandala to explain its symbols.

Money For Education
When they joined the project, the weavers were in their late teens and early 20s. Most had stopped their formal education after elementary school because the cost of a high school education is simply beyond the means of their cash-poor families. This project has given the weavers enough money to go to high school. After five years in the project, some have gone on to further studies in college and vocational schools.

But the benefits of the project go beyond what money can buy. The Creation Mandalas are beautiful and intricate woven works of art created with great skill. All who see the Creation Mandalas justifiably praise the artisans. This praise has profoundly improved the weavers’ self-esteem. Look at their photographs; you can see it in their smiles.

As a missionary, I am happy to be involved in a project that brings me into a mutually enhancing relationship with the local community and that praises the God of all creation. I am especially a thankful member of the Columban missionary family of Sisters, lay missionaries, priests and supporters whose concern for each other and for God’s creation promotes ministries such as the Subanen Crafts Project.

The project is now five years old, and Dina, Norcen, Edith, Mercy, Inday and Emily have joined the original group of weavers. As the project progresses, more weavers will be able to join, and those now in college will have acquired the skills to administrate the project. Above all, we pray that the project will help the Subanen people find a dignified future.