Phillino Washer Women
Filipino washerwomen, Manila, Philippines, possibly late 19th or early 20th Century. Exact location not known.
Ode To A Washer Woman
“Here’s a woman, a woman, a good washerwoman,
A woman, a woman, a good washerwoman,
A woman, a woman, a good washerwoman.
She dances and sings as she washes the clothes.”
I use this Ode to reflect that of a typical washerwoman tradition (above) performed daily throughout much of the Philippines.
Credits:
Graphic: Digital Commons, Otterbein
Photo: Terry Randolph, ca. 2010
Additional Interests
Stéphanie Marie R. Coo. Clothing and the colonial culture of appearances in nineteenth-century Spanish Philippines (1820-1896). History. Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, 2014. English.
<Click to access study>.
Odas para Diez Grabados
My portrayal of a Philopena washerwoman incorporates that of the Ode ‘The Irish Washerwoman’, a traditional Irish jig whose melody is familiar to many people in Ireland, the British Isles, and North America. Seen above, it repeats its refrain several times, sometimes by gradually increasing in tempo until being played very fast before coming to a sudden stop.
The Irish Washerwoman is a traditional Irish jig whose melody is familiar to many people in the British Isles and North America, … Its lyrics are typically rendered as an instrumental. It is one of the melodies played when Scottish highland dancers dance a Scottish dance to the tune of an Irish Jig.
I place it here to demonstrate that at some time in history humanity has all passed through various and sometimes similar stages of growth and development. None can be defined in terms of ‘developed or undeveloped’ or as ‘north or south’. Though current trends in social discourse amplify this style of thinking it fails to capture the fact that those in ancient times pioneered much of the knowledge upon which much modern-day accomplishments are based.
We are now beginning to understand that many old-style labor-intensive methods were much more environmentally friendly and the need to recapture these methods using efficient technologies.
