Personal Life
Photo by: Renato S. Astrollo
Salinta Monon was born on December 12, 1920, in Bitaug, Bansalan, Davao del Sur. She died on June 4, 2009, aged 88. A lot of her works are now displayed at the NCCA, National Museum and textile collectors from many parts of the globe.
Due to her reputation as a weaver, Agton Monon, a farmer, and her husband, had to pay a high bride price to her father Datu Bansalan Barra for him to be allowed to marry her. The two got married on July 4, 1946 and had six children. Salinta Monon had to manage the farm after her husband died in the 1970s.
With the effort to preserve the living form of the cultural heritage, Salinta Monon passed her legacy and indigenous skills and techniques in abaca weaving to the younger generation through the School of Living Tradition in Brgy. Bitaug, Bansalan, Davao del Sur.
Few women in the 1990s have the inclination, patience, or perseverance to undergo the strict training and discipline to become a weaver. Salinta maintains a pragmatic attitude towards the fact that she and her younger sister may be the only Bagobo weavers left, the last links to a colorful tradition among their ancestors that had endured throughout the Spanish and American colonization periods and survived with a certain vigor up to the late 1950s.
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“If someone wants to learn, then I am willing to teach,” she says. “If there is none…,” she shrugs off the thought.
Salinta Monon was known for her style which is the Traditional Bagobo-Tagabawa Design.
