# "Su Yao's Dazzling Counterattack Chapter 51"
The mist hung low over the rice terraces of the Philippines' Cordillera Mountains, where emerald-green paddies climbed the slopes like staircases to the clouds. Su Yao's jeep navigated a winding road through pine forests, passing Igorot villages with wooden houses on stilts and men in woven loincloths carrying baskets of crops. In the village of Banaue, beside a centuries-old terrace wall, a group of women sat on bamboo benches, their hands looping threads around wooden looms to create intricate blankets. Their leader, a woman with a *tapis* (woven skirt) dyed in deep reds and blacks named Lina, looked up as they approached, holding a finished *abel* cloth decorated with geometric patterns that mimicked the terraces. "You've come for the *abel*," she said, her Kankanaey language crisp like mountain air, gesturing to the piles of fabric stacked near a stone hearth.
The Igorot people of the Cordilleras have woven *abel* textiles for over 2,000 years, a craft intertwined with their agricultural way of life and spiritual beliefs. The *abel*—a thick, handwoven cloth made from cotton or pineapple fiber—serves as clothing, blankets, and offerings to the *anitos* (ancestral spirits). Its patterns are rooted in the land: *inabel* stripes represent rice terraces, The "Binakol" vortex imitates storm clouds that bring rain.and *kusikus* spirals symbolize good fortune for harvests. Woven on backstrap looms, each *abel* is dyed using plants from the mountains: *tagimaucia* flowers for pink, *bignay* bark for brown, and *indigo* for blue. The dyeing process is timed to the lunar calendar, with women gathering at dawn to soak fibers in streams blessed by the village shaman. Su Yao's team had traveled here to merge this ancient craft with their seaweed-metal blend, hoping to create a textile that honored Igorot traditions while adding durability to the delicate fibers. But from the first conversation, it was clear that their understanding of "heritage" and "innovation" was as different as the mountains' mist and the ocean's spray.
Lina's granddaughter, Amara, a 24-year-old who taught weaving at a local school, held up an *abel* blanket with *binakol* patterns in white and blue. "This is for the *pahiyas* festival," she said, tracing the swirling designs that ward off evil spirits. "My grandmother wove it during *buwan ng patatas* (potato month), when the terraces need rain. Each thread is tied with a prayer to *Bulul* (rice god) for a bountiful harvest. You don't just make *abel*—you bargain with the spirits."
Su Yao's team had brought electric looms and chemical dyes, intending to mass-produce simplified *abel* patterns using their seaweed-metal blend for a "cultural heritage" home decor line. When Lin displayed a prototype with machine-woven *kusikus* spirals, the women froze, their shuttle sticks hovering mid-air. Lina's husband, Galo, a village elder with a headdress of feathers and a staff carved with ancestor figures, stood abruptly. "You think machines can talk to *Bulul*?" he said, his voice booming across the terrace. "*Abel* carries the sweat of our mothers and the tears of the soil. Your metal has no sweat, no tears—it's a stone."
Cultural friction deepened over materials and rituals. Igorot weavers grow cotton in small plots beside the terraces, harvesting it by hand during the dry season and spinning it into thread using wooden spindles. The fibers are washed in water from sacred springs, where women leave offerings of rice cakes to thank the *anitos*. Dyes are prepared in clay pots over wood fires, with each batch stirred 108 times—a number sacred to their cosmology. The seaweed-metal blend, despite its organic origins, was viewed as a foreign intruder. "Your thread comes from the salt sea, which drowns our rice," Lina said, dropping a sample onto the dirt. "It will never understand how to ask *Bulul* for help."
A practical crisis emerged when the metal threads reacted with the *bignay* bark dye, turning it a sickly green and causing the cotton fibers to weaken. "It angers the spirits," Amara said, holding up a ruined swatch where the *inabel* stripes had blurred. "Our *abel* grows softer with each harvest, like a friendship. This will crack like dried mud."
Then disaster struck: a typhoon swept through the mountains, destroying the village's cotton crops and flooding the dyeing huts. The weavers' looms, some passed down for five generations, were damaged by fallen trees, and their supply of *indigo*—grown in a valley garden—was swept away. With planting season approaching and no materials to weave *abel* for rituals, the village faced a spiritual crisis. Galo, performing a *kanyaw* (offering ceremony) by sacrificing a chicken to the mountain spirits, blamed the team for disturbing the balance. "You brought something cold from the sea to our mountains," he chanted, as smoke from the ritual fire curled toward the clouds. "Now *Kabunian* (supreme god) is angry, and he withholds his gifts."
That night, Su Yao sat with Lina in her wooden house, where a clay stove simmered with *pinikpikan* (chicken stew), filling the air with the scent of ginger and lemongrass. The walls were hung with *abel* blankets and farming tools, and a small shrine to *Bulul* held a bowl of uncooked rice. "I'm sorry," Su Yao said, sipping *salabat* (ginger tea). "We came here thinking we could celebrate your craft, but we've only shown we don't understand its soul."
Lina smiled, passing Su Yao a piece of *kuih lapis* (layered cake). "The typhoon is not your fault," she said. "Mountains and storms have always danced. My grandmother used to say that broken things can be mended—like *abel* with a new thread. But your thread—maybe it's a sign. Young people move to the cities. We need to show them our *abel* can travel with them, without losing its voice."
Su Yao nodded, hope blooming like rice shoots after rain. "What if we start over? We'll help rebuild the cotton plots, dig out the looms, and replant the *indigo*. We'll learn to weave *abel* on backstrap looms, by hand. We won't copy your sacred patterns. Instead, we'll create new ones together—designs that merge your terraces with our ocean waves, honoring both *Kabunian* and the sea. And we'll let Galo bless the metal thread in a *kanyaw*, so it carries the spirits' approval."
Amara, who had been listening from the doorway, stepped inside, her *tapis* rustling. "You'd really learn to spin cotton at this altitude? Your lungs will burn, your hands will freeze in winter."
"However long it takes," Su Yao said. "And we'll learn the *hymns* to *Bulul* while we work. Respect means speaking his language."
Over the next three months, the team immersed themselves in Igorot life. They helped build stone retaining walls to protect the new cotton plots from landslides, their muscles aching from lifting rocks. They trekked to mountain streams with Galo to collect water for dyeing, learning to offer rice at each spring. They sat on bamboo benches, weaving *abel* strips until their backs ached, as the women sang *owik* (work songs) about the terraces and harvests. "The loom is a mirror of the mountains," Lina said, adjusting Su Yao's backstrap. "You lean too hard, and the thread breaks; too soft, and the pattern sags. Like life—balance is everything."
They learned to dye fibers in clay pots over open fires, their clothes stained brown and blue as Amara taught them to add *himbabao* (tree sap) to set the color. "*Bignay* dye needs to simmer during the first rain," she said, stirring a pot of dark liquid. "Rushing it is like rushing a prayer—it never reaches the gods." They practiced the *pinetes* stitch, which creates tiny diamond shapes representing rice grains, their progress slow but steady as Lina's mother, an 80-year-old weaver named Sabel, corrected their tension with a sharp tap of her shuttle. "The diamonds must be tight enough to hold rice," she said, her gnarled fingers brushing the cloth. "But loose enough to let it grow."
To solve the reaction between the metal threads and *bignay* dye, Lin experimented with coating the metal in a solution of *coconut oil* and *anito* bark, a mixture Igorot use to preserve wooden tools. The oil sealed the metal, preventing discoloration, while the bark infused it with a scent Galo declared "pleasing to *Kabunian*." "It's like giving the thread a mountain spirit," she said, showing Lina a swatch where the brown now glowed against the metal's shimmer.
Fiona, inspired by the way mountain rivers flow to the Philippine Sea, designed a new pattern called *danum* (water), merging Igorot terrace motifs with ocean waves in seaweed-metal thread. The terraces gradually flow into waves, symbolizing the connection between the mountains and the sea. "It honors your rice and our fish," she said, and Galo nodded, running his hand over the design. "*Kabunian* made both water and land," he said. "This cloth tells their story."
As the cotton plants sprouted and the repaired looms hummed with activity, the village held a *panagbenga* (flower festival) to celebrate new growth, with dances, music, and a feast of roasted pig. They unveiled their first collaborative piece: an *abel* blanket with the *danum* pattern, its cotton fibers strengthened by seaweed-metal thread that caught the sunlight like water on rice leaves, and traditional *binakol* borders that swirled like storm clouds.
Lina wrapped the blanket around Su Yao's shoulders during the celebration, as villagers chanted and beat gongs. "This cloth has two memories," she said, her eyes shining. "One from our terraces, one from your sea. But both remember to thank the gods."
As the team's jeep descended the mountain, Amara ran alongside, waving a small package. Su Yao rolled down the window, and she tossed it in: a scrap of *abel* dyed brown, stitched with a tiny terrace and wave in seaweed-metal, wrapped in a banana leaf. "To remember us by," read a note in Kankanaey and Tagalog. "Remember that the mountains and sea drink from the same sky—like your thread and our cotton."
Su Yao clutched the package as the Cordilleras faded into the distance, their peaks wreathed in mist. She thought of the hours spent weaving beside the terraces, the *owik* songs sung by firelight, the way the metal thread had finally learned to dance with the cotton. The Igorot had taught her that tradition isn't a cage—it's a bridge between the past and future, strong enough to carry new threads without breaking.
Her phone buzzed with a message from the Maasai team: photos of Aisha holding their collaborative *shuka* at a village celebration. Su Yao smiled, typing back: "We've added a new stitch—Igorot terraces and your sea, woven as one."
Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed, its call echoing across the valleys like a blessing. Su Yao knew their journey was far from over. There were still countless cultures to learn from, countless threads to weave into the tapestry of their work. And as long as they approached each new place with humility—listening to the land, honoring the spirits—the tapestry would only grow more sacred, a testament to the beauty of all life woven together.