Before roads and carriages were common, travel through the colonial Philippines was often by hammock, slung from a pole and carried by bearers. The hamaca was a standard means of transport for officials, clergy, and the well-to-do across the provinces.
José Honorato Lozano documented this scene as part of his Tipos del País watercolors, a body of work produced in the mid-nineteenth century recording the costumes, occupations, and daily life of Philippine society. The Indios Llevando Hamacas depicts bearers carrying a hammock, recording a common form of colonial transport and the labor behind it. Lozano worked primarily in Manila and produced illustrations that served as visual records of Philippine society for both local and foreign audiences. His work is considered among the most detailed and culturally specific visual documentation of the Philippines in the Spanish colonial period.
This print preserves a record of hammock transport and the bearers who carried it in the colonial Philippines.
Available as a fine art print
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