FAR EASTERN UNIVERSITY

Institute of Architecture and Fine Arts

HSTORY 432 History of Architecture 4

VERNACULAR FILIPINO ARCHITECTURE

Assignment

Submitted by:
Talastas, Richbourn Russel P.

Submitted to:
Arch. Dianne Ancheta

YAKAN
 The Yakan people are among the major indigenous Filipino ethnolinguistics
groups in the Sulu archipelago. Having a significant number of followers of Islam, it is
considered as one of the 13 Moro groups in the Philippines. The Yakans mainly
reside in Basilan but are also in Zamboanga City. They speak a language known as
Bahasa Yakan, which has characteristics of both Sama-Bajau Sinama and Tausug. It
is written in the Malayan Arabic script, with adaptations to sounds not present in
Arabic.

HISTORY OF YAKANS

The Yakans reside in the Sulu Archipelago, situated to the west of

Zamboanga in Mindanao. Traditionally they wear colorful, handwoven clothes. The
women wear tightfitting short blouses and both sexes wear narrowcut pants
resembling breeches. The women covers it partly with a wrap-around material while
the man wraps a sash-like cloth around the waist where he places his weapon
usually a long knife. Nowadays most Yakans wear western clothes and use their
traditional clothes only for cultural festivals.

The Spaniards called the Yakan, "Sameacas" and considered them an aloof
and sometimes hostile hill people.

In the early 1970s, some of the Yakan settled in Zamboanga City due to
political unrest which led the armed conflicts between the militant Moro and
government soldiers. The Yakan Village in Upper Calarian is famous among local
and foreign tourists because of their art of weaving. Traditionally, they have used
plants like pineapple and abaca converted into fibers as basic material for weaving.
Using herbal extracts from leaves, roots and barks, the Yakans dyed the fibers and
produced colorful combinations and intricate designs.

The Seputangan is the most intricate design worn by the women around their
waist or as a head cloth. The Palipattang is patterned after the color of the rainbow
while the bunga-sama, after the python. Almost every Yakan fabric can be described
as unique since the finished materials are not exactly identical. Differences may be
seen in the pattern or in the design or in the distribution of colors.

Contacts with Settlers from Luzon, Visayas and the American Peace Corps
brought about changes in the art and style of weaving. Many resorted to the
convenience of chemical dyes and they started weaving table runners, placemats,
wall decor, purses and other items which are not present in a traditional Yakan
house. In other words, the natives catered because of economic reason to the needs
of their customers which manifest their trading acumen. New designs were
introduced like kenna-kenna, patterned after a fish; dawen-dawen, after the leaf of a
vine; pene mata-mata, after the shape of an eye or the kabang buddi, a diamond-
shaped design.
TRADITIONAL YAKAN HOUSE

Typical Yakan house houses have three main components: the main house,
the kitchen and the porch. The main house is a single room, with no partitions and
has various functions such as a venue for social affairs, weaving area and as
sleeping quarters. The kitchen serves as the cooking and eating area. There was a
bridge connecting the kitchen and the main house. The pantan or the porch is the
main entry to the house, it can be open or roofed, also the main wooden ladder is
located here. Water jars and dugtung or large bamboos crafted as water containers
are also places here. The houses of the Yakan people face the east, and according
to their beliefs the building materials should be stockpiled also in the east. The
sapiaw or the roof is made of a steeply pitched cogon on bamboo or timber frames.
The walls are made of wooden bamboo strips called sawali. The floor may be made
of bamboo but often times it is made of timber. There are no ceilings and only one
window or tandiwan was allowed for the main house . The tandiwan and ladder were
allowed at the kitchen house.
LANGGAL

For the Yakan of Basilan Island, the langgal functions generally in the same way
as the masjid, so that even Friday noon assembly prayers may be held here. An
interesting point about the langgal is that, like the typical Yakan dwelling, it too is built
on piles and is conceived on indigenous lines. It is similar to Southeast Asian
mosques, notably the Indonesian (Javanese) langgar and the Malaysian surau, both
of which contain a voorgalerij or porch with a separate roof and a large room with a
niche (pangimbaran) standard features of a regular mosque
The basic difference between the langgal and the typical Yakan dwelling is that in
the langgal, the side walls do not reach right up to the roof. The entrance to this
house of prayer is through the porch, which is a step lower than the main room and
usually covered, with a roof that is somewhat lower than the main roof. At the
opposite end wall is the sunting or niche that faces west. During services this part of
the langgal is covered with cloth but normally devoid of any decor, like the langgal
itself.

REFERENCES

https://web.archive.org/web/20041214094247/http://www.ncip.gov.ph/resourc
es/ethno_detail.php?ethnoid=106

Valera-Turalba, Maria Christina. Philippine Heritage Architecture: before 1521

to the 1970s.Philippines: Anvil Publishing Inc.,2005

Yakan settlements, http://www.everyculture.com/East-Southeast-Asia/Yakan-

Settlements.html (Accessed on April 11,2008)

http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph:81/CC01/NLP00VM052mcd/v2/v2.pdf