he floor at night for a bed. They are durable and
last for years. Large sleeping mats may be purchased in quantities
as high as 40 to 100 during the Sunday market day in Talibon or on
the Saturday market day in Ypil, a barrio of the same town. In price
they range from one to three pesos each.

The second use of Bohol mats is for decorating walls, tables, and
floors. Those so employed are smaller than the sleeping mats, usually
square, but sometimes round. More care is exercised in their weaving
and only fine young straws are used. The preparation of the straw
and the dyeing are done with great care. Mats of the best quality
are quite difficult to secure and the schools have recently been
encouraging their production.

As in other regions, the tikug from which Bohol mats are made, grows
wild in the rice fields after the harvest. It is found in abundance
in northern Bohol in the municipalities of Getafe, Talibon and Ubay,
and sparingly in other towns of the island (see map). The straws
are gathered from the field by pulling them, thus breaking them off
at the roots, and they are tied into bundles about 3 decimeters
in circumference and sold in the market. The largest market for
such bundles is found in the barrio of Ypil in the municipality of
Talibon. The price is usually about 10 centavos per bundle. From two
to four of these bundles are required to make a mat.

The tikug is not kept in the original bundles longer than one or
two days, for it will turn black. The material is usually separated
into two parts, one to be dyed, the other to be bleached. That to be
dyed is spread in the sun and thoroughly dried for one or two days,
care being taken that rain does not fall upon it and blacken it. The
other part is boiled in a solution of acetic acid for twenty minutes,
after which it is thoroughly dried in the sun and thus bleached.

The natural dyes used in Bohol for coloring tikug are dauda and
turmeric. The former produces permanent colors, the latter fugitive
ones. The artificial dyes bought at Chinese stores are also used
in producing shades and tints of green, violet and ruby which are
satisfactory. In general, those in crystal form have proven more
satisfactory than the powder dyes. Before dyeing, the sheath-like leaf
is pulled from the bottom of each straw and the material is looped
into small bundles. Often the straws are dampened with water. Dyeing
is usually done in a 5-gallon petroleum can two-thirds full of w