Batok (traditional tattoos) in diaspora:

the reinvention of a globally mediated

Kalinga identity
Analyn Salvador-Amores

Abstract: Tattooing, in terms of both practice and tattoo design, has

become a significant component of popular global culture and the
focus of anthropological studies worldwide (for example, Gell, 1993;
Allen, 2005; Kuwahara, 2005; Thomas et al, 2005). Tattoos also played
a role in twentieth century identity politics (De Mello, 2000; Atkinson,
2003) and they take on a similar role within the Filipino diaspora. This
paper examines how diasporic Filipinos are turning to tattoos, and
tattoo designs from the Kalinga ethnic group in particular, to formu-
late specific expressions of cultural authenticity and identity.
Appropriating such tattoos reinvents a Filipino tradition as a way of
sustaining and reshaping ties to a newly imagined homeland.

Keywords: tattoos; identity; diaspora; tattoo revival; Kalinga

Author details: Analyn Salvador-Amores is with the Department of

Social Anthropology, University of the Philippines Baguio. She is cur-
rently completing her dissertation for a DPhil in Social and Cultural
Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Mailing address: Hertford
College-MCR, Catte Street, Oxford OX1 3BW, UK. E-mail:
[email protected].

What objects, practices and techniques mediate diaspora? Kalinga tat-

toos teach us interesting lessons about the way in which diasporic cultures
appropriate and utilize tradition as a resource for identity and self-ex-
pression. How do individuals learn of tattoo designs and the existence of
tattoo artists? What sorts of meanings do tattoos generate in the context
of identity formation? I offer an ethnographic account and analysis of the
practice of batek or batok, the general term for the traditional Igorot tat-
toos among the Kalinga, an ethnolinguistic group of northern Luzon in
the Philippines. The Kalinga tattoo themselves profusely with elaborate
designs on wrists, arms, chest, legs and, in some instances, on their faces.

South East Asia Research, 19, 2, pp 293–318 doi: 10.5367/sear.2011.0045

294 South East Asia Research

For the Kalinga, such tattoos function as painful rites of passage, as bodily
adornments and as visible markers of personal or place-based religious
and political affiliations. For diasporic Filpinos and others, Kalinga
designs are taking on new kinds of signification. Thus, despite the rela-
tive decline in traditional tattooing across the Kalinga region of northern
Luzon, there is an unprecedented revival of traditional tattoos in Buscalan,
a remote village in Tinglayan municipality, southern Kalinga. The revival
or ‘(re)invention’ of traditional Kalinga tattoos in Buscalan is both global
and local simultaneously. It is not just Filipino diasporans returning ‘home’
from overseas who seek out tattoos from southern Kalinga, but young
Butbut-Kalinga and other urban Filipinos who have developed – in con-
junction with Filipino global migration – a renewed appreciation of
traditional tattoos as a strategy to signify their own individual and ethnic
identities. Traditional tattoo designs are also being sought out by urban
Filipinos and diasporic Kalinga and non-Kalinga people (for example,
local and foreign tourists) who travel to Buscalan to be tattooed by a
traditional tattoo practitioner [manbatok].
The growing popularity of what – 20 years ago – seemed to be a
waning cultural practice can be explored through Hobsbawm’s theori-
zation of the ‘invention of tradition’. Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983)
famously observed that traditions that appeared or seemed to be of an-
cient origin might only have emerged fairly recently. Further, Hobsbawm
(1983, pp 1–2) theorized that:

‘invented tradition . . . includes both “traditions” actually invented,

constructed, and formally instituted, and those emerging in a less easily
traceable manner within a brief and dateable period . . . “invented
tradition” is taken to mean a set of practices governed by overtly or
tacitly accepted rules and of ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to
inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which
automatically implies continuity of the past … The peculiarity of “in-
vented” traditions is that the continuity with it is largely factitious.
… They are responses to novel situations which take the form of
references to old situations, or which establish their own past by quasi-
obligatory repetition … The object and characteristic of “traditions”
including inventing ones, is invariance.’

Hobsbawm (1983, pp 7–8) also makes reference to a ‘break in continu-

ity’ that can transform even long-standing customs into ‘invented
traditions’. These breaks, he points out, occur more often when ‘old
 Batok (traditional tattoos) in diaspora 295

traditions’ that have experienced a decline or demise over the centuries

are revived for the purpose of asserting identity. This observation leads
Hobsbawm (1983, pp 5–8) to posit that even ‘extinct’ traditions be-
come (re)invented traditions when they are revived.
Hobsbawm, however, does not explain adequately what he means by
‘revival’ or how to distinguish analytically between what is, and what
is not, an ‘invented’ tradition. Traditions are not static entities. Rather,
as Wagner (1975, p 9) observes, tradition involves a continual process
of self-modification or ‘dialectical invention’ – what Sahlins (1999)
refers to as the ‘inventiveness of tradition’: that is, the capacity of cul-
tures to renew themselves through an ongoing process of reinvention.
The continuous process whereby ‘living traditions’ reinvent themselves
might thus be ‘understood as a sign of vitality rather than decadence’
(Sahlins, 1999, p 409).
I argue here that as a ‘living tradition’, the entanglements between
contemporary local and diasporic engagements with Kalinga tattooing
are closer to Hobsbawm’s description of ‘revivals’ rather than ‘inven-
tions’ of tradition. In this paper, ‘revival’ refers to two interlinked
processes: (1) a local-level Butbut Kalinga tattooing renaissance taking
place amidst increasing tourist interest in tattoos, and (2) a reinvention
of the ‘Kalinga tattooing tradition’ in the diaspora to signify a kind of
newly imagined, pan-Filipino and pre-Hispanic authentic identity. What
the diaspora has given the Butbut Kalinga tattoo ‘tradition’ is a new
vitality and global scope of expression. Further, the resultant tattoos
(‘revived tattoos’) draw from various media resources (for example,
the Internet, old photographs, ethnographic texts) and personal experi-
ences with the Kalinga tattoo designs. Both media representations and
experiences together enable recipients of tattoos to articulate and vali-
date an ethnic or national identity through their skin. Kalinga tattoos
not only mark and make Kalinga ethnic identifications, they also ex-
press the individuality of and create an imagined history for non-Kalinga
Filipinos living a bi-cultural or multicultural existence in the diaspora.

The Butbut of Kalinga

The traditional tattooing practice I study belongs to the Butbut people
of the municipality of Tinglayan, south of Kalinga region, northern
Philippines (Figure 1). Butbut land rises from the banks of the Chico
River. North of the river are the mountain areas on whose strategic slopes
are found four of the five Butbut villages: Buscalan, Loccong, Ngibat
296 South East Asia Research

and Butbut proper (Figure 1). The fifth, Bugnay, is on a southern slope.
These five villages have a population of about 3,083 (NSO Census,
2009). More than 50 groups comprise what is referred to – somewhat
inaccurately at times – as the wider ‘Kalinga’ ethnolinguistic group.
Lowland Filipinos are generally unfamiliar with the distinctions among
inhabitants of Kalinga province, and people in the Butbut villages are
generally referred to as Kalinga. The Butbut villages have produced a
number of indigenous rights activists, including the martyrs Macliing
Dulag and Pedro Dungoc. Butbut leadership in struggles against gov-
ernment-led plans for resource development has made ‘the Kalinga’ –
as represented by Butbut people – prominent in the Filipino national
political consciousness as tattooed indigenous rights activists.
The Butbuts’ prominence is rooted in their courageous struggle against
the infamous plans to dam the Chico River in 1975. Tattoos figured even
in this struggle when elderly women disrobed [lusay] their tattooed torsos
and limbs in front of government surveyors and soldiers as a way of
blocking the dam development. The Butbut believed that the women’s act
of unveiling would bring extreme harm and bad luck to the men observing
them. Another group of tattooed women dismantled and burned campsites
of project engineers in 1974 in Basao, a village next to Bugnay (Lua, 1992,
p 36). In May 1975, 150 papangat [tattooed village elders and peacemak-
ers] from Kalinga and Bontoc forged the Bodong Federation Inc, which
united to oppose the construction of four hydroelectric dams that would
have inundated Kalinga villages, rice terraces and sacred burial grounds.
For the first time, the Kalinga and Bontoc created inter-tribal solidarity and
declared their preparedness to resort to armed resistance to defend their
ancestral domain. They sent petitions and delegations to President Marcos
in Manila, but the president dismissed their appeal as sentimental and
urged them instead to make sacrifices for the sake of the nation’s progress.
The Marcos government then sent military forces to the area. The escala-
tion of military operations in the area became a national and international
issue, especially after the tribal leader Macliing Dulag was killed by sol-
diers in his own house. The slaying of Macliing Dulag further united the
northern peoples and attracted not just global attention, but the attention
of ‘progressive’ and ‘activist’ urban Filipinos. The tattooed leaders, elders
and women were at the forefront of a people’s struggle. For the metro-
politan progressive audience, a Kalinga tattoo represents a connection to
this rural resistance against both the corrupt Marcos regime and the World
Bank, and the affirmation of a Filipino cultural connection to nature con-
servation and ‘traditional lifeways’.
 Batok (traditional tattoos) in diaspora 297

(a)

ILOCOS
NORTE APAYAO
Laoag

Kabugao CAGAYAN
ABRA
Tuguegarao
Vigan Bangued
KALINGA
Lubuagan Tabuk
Tinglayan ISABELA
ILOCOS MOUNTAIN PROV.Cabagan
BRntoc Palanan
SUR
iFUGAO Cauayan
Banaue
LA Mankayan
Lagawe
UNION Echague
San
Fernando BENGUET Bayombong
La Trinidad AURORA
Baguio City Dupax Maddela S.P.
NUEVA Casiguran
VIZCAYA QUIRINO
Dagupan NUEVA
Urdanata
ECIJA
PANGASINAN
San Jose Baler
QUEZON

(b)

Belong
Mallango

Tulgao West Centro Bangad

Sumadel 2
Dananao Upper Bangad

Sumadel 1
Lower Bangad

Tulgao East
Poblacion
Ambato
Loccong
Old Tinglayan
Ngibat Luplupa
Proper Butbut
Buscalan

Basao

Study area Bugnay

0 1,550 3,100 6,200 9,300 12,400

Metres

Figure 1. (a) The Cordillera region, north Luzon, Philippines and (b) Tinglayan, a
municipality of the Kalinga region where the five Butbut villages are located.
298 South East Asia Research

Today, the Butbut village of Buscalan – like any other village in the
Philippines – is also exposed to external influences and market forces
that affect traditional lifestyles. By the 1980s, the population had in-
creased, as had outmigration in search of waged work, and traditional
activities such as tattooing, pottery making, weaving and basketry had
changed. Buscalan is now a popular destination for tourists seeking to
be tattooed with traditional tattoos by Whang-ud, a 90-year-old tattoo
practitioner from Buscalan. The village is currently being promoted by
the local tourism office in Tinglayan as a destination for those seeking
batok [tattoos], in addition to producing products such as kape [coffee]
and unoy [native rice]. Whang-ud’s tattooing services have been sought
by young Butbut and local and foreign tourists alike, and her work has
attracted media attention from both tourism promotions and wider ‘al-
ternative culture’-type publications or programmes. Tattooing has thus
recently re-emerged to provide an alternative livelihood to the tradi-
tional agricultural industry in the village.

Nabatokan: traditional tattooing in the village

Tattooing was common practice among the warriors of the major
ethnolinguistic groups in the Philippine Cordillera: that is, the Bontoc,
Ifugao and Kalinga. Although very little is known or written about the
practice, traditional tattooing was reportedly widespread in the Philip-
pines in the early sixteenth century (Van Dinter, 2005). Accounts recorded
by Spaniards in the early eighteenth century reveal that tattoos were
common on the Cordillera, but offer little on the context and practice of
tattooing. Foreign ethnographers then reinforced the idea that tattooing
was done primarily and solely in connection with the practice of
headhunting warfare (Worcester, 1912, 1913; Barton, 1949; Dozier,
1966). Although tattoos have acquired myriad meanings and signifi-
cance for the Kalinga over time, tattoo designs in the Cordilleras are
still primarily associated with headhunting (Roces, 1991, p 153). Print
and broadcast media continue to perpetuate this notion.
As the dam protests of the 1970s indicate and as my research dis-
closes, tattooing is not only linked with headhunting, but is associated
both historically and contemporaneously with a broader range of social
meanings (Salvador-Amores, 2002, 2009). Traditionally, whiing [chest
tattoos] on men denoted bravery exhibited in defending the village against
enemy attacks. To become a warrior in Butbut society entailed a great
sense of responsibility [nakem] for the entire village and its people. For
 Batok (traditional tattoos) in diaspora 299

Kalinga warriors, killing per se was wrong, but killing an enemy was a
noble act and in accordance with their customary laws. Immediately
after the successful headhunting party returned to the village, men would
celebrate the tumo [victory feasts] when they butchered pigs and buffa-
loes, played the gangsa [gongs] and danced [tadek]. Tattooing of the
successful warriors [maingor] followed, as tattoos were considered to
be talismans to repel malevolent spirits or ‘armours’ to protect their
bodies – part of what Thomas (1999, p 237) calls a ‘technology of fear’:
tattoos intimidate and incite fear in the enemy in warfare, and at the
same time command respect from the people.
Further, tattoos were – and continue to be – indicative of the high
social standing of the warrior class [kamaranan] and mark wealth and
prestige for both men and women. In Kalinga society, if the grandfather
was tattooed, all ensuing male progeny were encouraged to become
warriors so that they might earn their respective tattoos after successful
participation in baruknit [warfare or inter-village conflicts] and kayaw
[headhunting]. Women too were entitled to have tattoos when their male
kin gained recognition as respected warriors in the village. The mark-
ing of tattoos on a woman’s body was a visual display of their own and
their male kinsmen’s political and social positions in the community.
When a warrior was tattooed, his female children and female first cous-
ins were also tattooed to signify their membership in a renowned clan
of warriors. As Lagunawa (a pseudonym), 86, a tattooed elderly woman
explains:

‘My father was fully tattooed on the face, chest, back and arms, in-
cluding his legs after successfully participating in four tribal wars.
He said that all my sisters were tattooed as there was no longer any
space available on his body to put the marks of his achievement as a
great warrior. Out of obedience and respect, we consented to get tat-
toos. Now that I am old, it reminds me of my father, his courage and
dedication to protect our village.’

Tracing the kinship charts of some research participants who are 60

years old and above, I discovered that most of the eldest female chil-
dren were tattooed, as were their parents and grandparents. To this day,
the elders recall that people with tattoos were more esteemed than those
who were ‘different’ – that is, without tattoos. Young women without
tattoos suffered social stigma and were taunted by their peers who called
them chinur-as [cowards without tattoos]. Young men teased these un-
300 South East Asia Research

tattooed women by rubbing saliva on their arms. Many of the elder

women say that the psychological trauma produced by the taunts was
more painful than the physical pain experienced in the process of be-
coming tattooed. As such, many young women opted to endure the
process rather than bearing the shame.
As a bodily aesthetic, tattoos also acted as painful reminders of rites
of passage. Elderly Butbut women say that one who has endured the
pain of the tattooing process will be able to bear any pain encountered
later in life. Once tattooed, a woman is considered to be of marriage-
able age. This is not unlike other anthropological examples of body
transformation through rites of passage (Mead, 1928 [1972]; Van
Gennep, 1962; Turner, 1969) in which young people are integrated into
the adult community and socially recognized as being ready to take
on an adult role – ready to marry, bear children and carry responsibil-
ity for other forms of social relations in society. Tattoos are also said
to ensure fertility for women and virility for men. In this case, the
Butbut practice of tattooing the body in a painful rite of passage ena-
bles the bearer of the tattoo to become a fully social person within the
village. For the older generation, the beauty indicated by the tattoos
does not refer simply to beauty in the physical sense. Tattoos repre-
sent beauty of the intangible sort: strength, character, discipline,
fortitude and similar traits.
For many tattooed Butbut elders, tattoos are valued over ephemeral
material possessions. These, they believe, are the only things they truly
own even in death and the afterlife. ‘It is only the batok that is buried
with us,’ they say. ‘That is the only thing that we inherit from our an-
cestors.’ Today, the old women who are tattooed easily outnumber the
number of tattooed old men. Of the remaining male elders, those with
chest tattoos number even fewer. Men who had both chest tattoos [whiing]
and tattoos on the back [dakag] were of exceptional bravery, indicating
a warrior who fought in face-to-face combat.

American colonialism and the decline of tattooing

There was a significant decline in traditional tattooing among the Kalinga
during the twentieth century. In the mid-1900s, as part of a drive to
establish ‘law and order’ throughout the sub-province of the old Moun-
tain province, the American colonial government, under the leadership
of Governor Walter Hale, criminalized headhunting (Barton, 1949;
Dozier, 1966, 1967). Hale recognized the existence of regional units
 Batok (traditional tattoos) in diaspora 301

where certain influential tattooed leaders [pangats] exercised authority

and received the respect of the local population. He empowered tat-
tooed elders through the use of peace pacts [puchon], which provided a
mechanism of arbitration to check further retaliation on either side dur-
ing tribal conflicts. Strict penalties were imposed on violators of the
peace pact. Furthermore, carefully selected tattooed warriors were
recruited to join the Philippine Constabulary to reduce inter-village hos-
tilities in the region. This strategy eventually led to the decline of
headhunting and its associated tattooing.
In both Spanish and American colonial eras, tattoos created a distinc-
tion between different groups of colonized people – between the
uncivilized non-Christians and the more civilized Christians. Under
American rule, the decline of tattooing was linked to an acceleration in
Christian conversion of mountain peoples:

‘The missionaries established hospitals, orphanages, seminaries and

institutions. Unfortunately however, the traditional practice of wear-
ing G-string and bare-breasted women [with tattoos] were forbidden
in some of these institutions. Under the prevailing church mores, they
were considered obscene and hence, evil.’ (CICM, 2007, p 99)

Christianity brought with it the concept of kababain [an Ilocano term

for ‘shame’, whain in Butbut] and the papachi [priests] reproved the
local people for ‘headhunting, dirty dwellings, for wild manners, and
for going without clothes’ (AMP, 1956, p 9). Moreover, the American
regime brought cultural stereotypes that held ‘tattoos as marks of shame
worn by outlaws, misfits, or those who have fallen from social grace’
(Atkinson, 2003, p 23). Missionaries solicited sewing machines for the
girls in the mission schools so they could learn how to sew. In addition
to sewing, the women learned that they should wear white blouses to
cover their breasts and to conceal their tattoos. The men were provided
with trousers when they were recruited into the Philippine Constabu-
lary. The Christian introduction of clothing thus diminished the visibility
and hence the significance of tattoos.
Another outcome of American rule was an emergent distinction be-
tween the lowlander and the highlander (Scott, 1974). In the lowlands
and cities dominated by lowland culture, their distinctive tattoos meant
that Kalinga were easily identified as part of a marginalized highland
group. Among the urban middle classes, even in Kalinga, tattoos were
considered a mark of social deviance associated with criminality or of
302 South East Asia Research

ethnic ‘backwardness’. These prejudices became most evident when

tattooed people travelled beyond their home villages. Tattooed Kalinga
elders travelling to cities and lowlands concealed their tattoos under
long-sleeved shirts; they were painfully aware of the kind of reception
their tattoos might generate. Due to the attitudes of twentieth century
urbanites, the increased mobility of the Butbut contributed to the de-
cline of the traditional practice. From the 1990s onwards, young people
moved from the village to the city to attend universities, find jobs and
intermarry with members of other groups.
Because of the direct and indirect interventions of the colonial state,
the practice of tattooing waned, but it did not disappear altogether. Al-
though headhunting ended in the late 1960s, tattoos kept their role as
talismans and spiritual armour. A generation of elderly warriors have
the traditional whiing [chest tattoos], earned when they fought against
the Japanese forces during the Second World War. These men are known
as maingor or maur’mot [warriors] in the Butbut and Kalinga context.
Those tattooed elders continued to be recognized for their leadership
and were consulted in the forging of new alliances, resolution of rup-
tured peace pacts or settling of community disputes.
In the 1960s–70s, younger men who were drawn into and partici-
pated in conflicts with the post-colonial state and who defended their
village from enemy attacks either by rebel troops or by the military,
also earned tattoos. However, that generation of Butbut men (between
50 and 60 years old) refused to be tattooed with the elaborate chest
tattoos that their predecessors had because of the fear of mapu-
chaan [short life or early death]. The elders encouraged the younger
men to have tattoos, but discouraged them from ‘copying’ the patterns
of the old warriors. Instead, the younger generation of Butbut warri-
ors developed and reinterpreted the designs, fusing the old and the
new. Although the technique and social meanings were similar, the de-
signs, size and location of the tattoos varied to conceal the notion of
being the ‘killer’ of the enemy or tattoos being earned as ‘tribal
trophies’.
A case in point is Chuyawon (a pseudonym), 68, who earned his tat-
too during the peak of the struggle against the Chico River Dam Project
in the early 1970s. Chuyawon chose a more figurative design for his
chest and upper arms to avoid being tagged as a ‘killer’. He reveals that
the elders tattooed with whiing advised him not to be tattooed with the
same patterns of the old warriors as this would cause the ngilin [taboo]
of mapuchaan [short life or early death] or the taboo of mawhuyong
 Batok (traditional tattoos) in diaspora 303

[blindness].1 Beliefs about mapuchaan could also be the reason why

few men from Chuyawon’s generation to the present have tattoos on
the chest and why many who are warriors have refused to be tattooed.
Today, these individuals are given more contemporary figurative de-
signs (for example, snakes, fish, lizards, turtles, birds and flowers) to
diminish fear inspired by the traditional geometric tattoos found on older
men.
What follows explores in more detail the changing significance of
tattoos and the new designs that have emerged from the 1970s to the
present. I focus in particular on the way in which, since the turn of the
new millennium, Kalinga tattoos have become a focal point both for
foreign tourists and Filipino diasporans alike, tracing these changes
through the life and work of one female tattoo practitioner, Whang-ud.

Whang-ud: traditional practitioner of batok

Tattooing was a specialist activity of the men in Kalinga society and
among the Ifugao and Bontoc of the Cordillera region. It was the male
manbatok [tattoo practitioner] who tattooed the young men and women
of the village, and female tattoo practitioners were, and remain, rela-
tively rare. However, I was introduced to Whang-ud, a 90-year-old female
tattoo practitioner from the village of Buscalan. Whang-ud learned tat-
tooing when she was 13 years old, working as an apprentice to Whag-ay,2
an old tattoo practitioner from Ngibat who resided in Buscalan for four
years in the early 1930s. Whang-ud and another female tattoo practi-
tioner named Amtadao3 (a pseudonym) who hails from Basao were
Whag-ay’s apprentices. Whag-ay tattooed many young men and women
in the village for a fee, and Whang-ud was one of them. Whang-ud has
tattoos done by Whag-ay on the upper shoulders, arms and neck. In
October 2008, she was tattooed on the nape of her neck by a young
Filipino–American tattoo artist from Los Angeles during a cultural fes-
tival in Tabuk, Kalinga’s capital.
Before proceeding, it is important to note that the term ‘artist’ or ‘art’
is not present in the repertoire of Butbut words. Tattoos and tattooing
1
The same term, mawhuyong [to go blind], is also used in Bontoc. Another Butbut
term is mawhuyo [to go rotten], meaning the death of a person.
2
Whag-ay was approximately 100 years old when he died in Ngibat in 1999. People
recalled that in the cherwasay [funeral song], he was praised for being an industri-
ous tattoo practitioner. He stopped tattooing in the early 1970s because he was partially
blind.
3
Amtadao (86) can no longer tattoo due to poor eyesight. Her last tattoos on men
were done in the mid-1980s.
304 South East Asia Research

are seen as a social practice and a cultural endeavour rather than as an

art form. The lack of a specific word is an indication that the production
and reception of imagery, symmetry, performance and so on, are inte-
grally connected to their way of life (Morphy and Perkins, 2006, p 13).
What is present is the word manwhatok (man is a prefix that means ‘a
person who does’ and whatok means tattoos) to refer to a person who
does traditional tattoos, such as Whang-ud and her predecessors. The
English term ‘tattoo artist’ is one used by local and foreign tourists
when visiting the area, and has gained currency among the local people
in Butbut and in Kalinga to refer to a person who makes the tattoos,
whether ‘traditional’ tattoos (such as those of Whang-ud) or ‘modern’
tattoos (done in the shops in nearby cities).
Whang-ud considers her markings to be whayyu [beautiful]. She also
sees tattoos as being about lifelong learning: that is, learning by having
it done on her body. Whang-ud consigned in her memory each tap of
the design done by the elder Whag-ay. Her legs also have faint tattoo
tracings of short parallel lines and triangles that she said were ‘practice
marks’ – relics of experiments she had carried out on herself in the
process of learning her craft.
Whang-ud mastered tattooing when she was about 20 years old. Her
renown as an artist stems from her reputation as a tattoo practitioner
with a ‘light hand’, and as such she received invitations to visit and
practise her art and tattoo people in other villages. The main tattoo in-
strument that she uses is called the gisi, a stick with a lemon thorn
[parakuk id lubfan] inserted in a hole towards one end. The gisi is hand-
tapped at a rate of about 90 to 120 taps per minute using a pat-ik, a
wooden stick, to create the design. In the past, Whang-ud recounts that
it took about three days to tattoo a man’s chest, a day to tattoo an arm
and another day for the other arm.
Traditionally, ink is made using charcoal powder or soot scraped
from underneath a clay pot [whanga]. When Whang-ud opts to use
traditional tattoo ink from charcoal, instead of clay earthenware, she
scrapes the first layer of soot from the bottom of an aluminium pan4
used for daily cooking. The dark charcoal powder is placed in the half-
shell of a coconut, and about 50 ml of clear water is poured in. The
mixture is then stirred to the desired thickness using a slice of sweet

4
Aluminium pans and plastic plates have reached the village via itinerant lowland
traders, and have replaced the traditional clay pots and wooden plates used in the
past.
 Batok (traditional tattoos) in diaspora 305

potato. On other occasions, Whang-ud uses sugarcane soot.5

Although Whang-ud still uses this traditional mix, there have been
instances when she has used ink from a pen or the bottled Indian ink
given to her by a Bontoc teacher, Kerchaten, who lived among the Butbut
in the 1980s. She has also tattooed using bottled red and black Indian
inks brought from Tuguegarao City by an ex-military man from Butbut
who wanted to be tattooed by Whang-ud. Recently, a Hawaiian tradi-
tional tattoo artist, Keone Nunes, gave Whang-ud an ink made of kukui
nuts (Aleurites moluccana) used in traditional tattooing. Although Whang-
ud has used these different inks in tattooing, she still prefers the traditional
mix because it leaves a darker mark on the skin – a mark that is not
prone to discoloration. China black ink (Rotring), which is popular in
French Polynesia, becomes greenish black when tattooed on the skin
(Kuwahara, 2005, p 66), and this was the case with some tattoos I saw
among other tattooed elders in the Cordillera region.
Among the Butbut, black ink is preferred because the elders say that
it is usually as black [nangitit], as dark [nalatak] as the colour of the
native pig [burias] and the thickness of the skin [ublit na whuyo] with a
comparable thickness to that of human skin (Revzani et al, 1994; Engel
et al, 2008). Nalatak connotes that the ink is deeply embedded under-
neath the skin [naichayo or naicharum, meaning ‘deep in the skin’],
hence a permanent visual record of the wealth owned by an affluent
family.
Historically, tattooing fees were expensive. For instance, payment
for tattoos on both arms (for women) or the chest (for men) would cost
a medium-sized pig, bundles of rice, silver coins, a pair of kain [skirt]
or bahag (loincloth) and beads equivalent to the price of a pig or water
buffalo. In some cases, when families could not afford to pay the re-
quired amounts, alternative payment schemes were arranged. For
instance, Saguysuy (86), a tattooed elder, paid for her tattoos by work-
ing on rice fields owned by Whang-ud’s family during the planting [ra-ep]
and harvest season [apit]. The prevalence of tattoos among affluent

5
In the contemporary Philippines, there is an emerging health discourse surrounding
unsanitary conditions and unsafe practices in underground tattoo shops by unlicensed
tattoo artists. The Philippine government’s Senate Bill No 2141, ‘An Act to Regu-
late Body Piercing and Tattooing of 2005’, regulates ‘all forms of body piercing and
tattooing to protect the health and welfare of the public’. It stipulates that tattooing
must be done in licensed tattoo studios that have been issued clearances by the De-
partment of Health. Clearly, Whang-ud’s way of tattooing falls outside the parameters
set by the government; nonetheless, more and more people have sought her out for
‘authentic tribal designs’ from the very source.
306 South East Asia Research

Kalinga families in the past is shown by the presence of many old tat-
too practitioners in different villages – most especially in places where
peace pacts were held and victory feasts were celebrated. Whang-ud
was and remains one of the finest female tattooists among them.

Tourism and the revival of tattooing in (and beyond) Kalinga

In Butbut and nearby Kalinga villages, there were historically two kinds
of tattoo practitioner. The first was a resident tattooist who tattooed
people in the community. The second was a travelling tattooist who
would visit other villages to tattoo for a fee. By the end of the Second
World War, Whang-ud had become both a resident and a travelling tat-
too practitioner. Her craft brought her to other villages in Tinglayan:
Bangad, Basao, Poblacion, Sumadel (southern Kalinga); Lubo, Dacalan
(south-east Kalinga); and she has even travelled to Lubuagan, Pasil (north-
ern Kalinga) and Betwagan, Saclit and Bontoc (to the south in Mountain
province) and further south to Benguet province to tattoo hundreds of
young men and women.
Thereafter, her popularity further rose in the 1960s–80s. During that
period, the traditional designs of the elders (discussed above) were re-
vised and altered in various ways by a generation of young Kalinga
men who sought the services of Whang-ud. The tattoos that they ac-
quired combined Whang-ud’s traditional geometric patterns and the
figurative designs preferred by the then younger generation of Butbut.
Those emergent designs were modern re-expressions and reintepretations
of traditional forms that created new meanings and had different aes-
thetic affects. Whang-ud’s younger brother Puchay (54),6 was one of
the first to draw figurative patterns using a ballpoint pen. His drawings
and graphic design approach led to more personal or individualized
designs, rather than the more institutional or social practice of identical
patterns of tattooing in the past.
Since 2000, traditional tattoos done by Whang-ud have been appro-
priated by various individuals from different social backgrounds as
markers of their identities. Many of her customers are now tourists –
around the world, the renewed popularity of traditional tattooing has
been developed in close association with tourism. Local tourist guides
from Tinglayan, Kalinga and Sagada include Butbut in their itinerary
for local and foreign tourists; and tourist guidebooks mention the remote
6
Puchay was the only one of Whang-ud’s siblings who was able to attend and com-
plete high school.
 Batok (traditional tattoos) in diaspora 307

villages of Tinglayan as ‘great trekking destinations’ whose people are

known for their ‘distinct chest tattoos’ (Lonely Planet, 2005, 2008).
Tourists who visit Buscalan may be classified according to the fol-
lowing: (1) those first- time travellers to Buscalan who, upon meeting
Whang-ud, are persuaded to have tattoos; (2) ‘tattoo collectors’ or en-
thusiasts who have been tattooed previously by other tattoo artists and
who may have one or more tattoos covering their skin; and (3) tradi-
tional art enthusiasts who visit Buscalan not primarily to get tattoos.
Most of the foreign tourists, whose ages range from 21 to 42, have
previous experience of tattooing (either they are extensively tattooed or
they have gained information about tattoos from the Internet).
Whang-ud estimates that during the peak summer tourism months
(March–April) she tattoos four people each day, and 40 people per month,
on average. During my fieldwork in 2009, Whang-ud estimated that
she had tattooed more than 200 persons, local and foreign tourists alike,
since 2005. With the recent influx of foreign and local tourists into the
village, Whang-ud has also adjusted her rates for tattoo services. She
now charges by the changan, a hand measurement from the thumb to

Figure 2. Whang-ud measures the changan, from the thumb to the middle finger,
approximately four inches, on her tattooed arms.
Photograph by Analyn Salvador-Amores.
308 South East Asia Research

the middle finger, approximately four inches long (Figure 2). A tattoo
the size of a changan costs between 1,000 and 2,000 pesos ($20–$40)
for foreign and local lowland tourists. Lower rates apply for locals (those
from Kalinga).
With the influx and convergence of tourists coming from North
America, Canada, European countries such as Germany, Italy, England,
the Netherlands, Switzerland, and local tourists coming from Manila,
in Buscalan, traditional tattoos have become desacralized and are in-
creasingly being obtained for decorative purposes. Clients ‘choose’ the
designs from among those found on her arms. Whang-ud would tattoo
local and foreign tourists with a small part or a combination of tradi-
tional tattoo patterns on the legs, upper shoulders, wrists and back; and
in some cases, a full sleeve on the other arm. The tattoos I observed are
designed with the express purpose of public display (such as on the
arms, wrists, lower leg), while others are tattooed on areas where tat-
toos are readily ‘concealed and revealed’ (upper shoulders, back or upper
thigh).
The motivations of the tattooee vary from identity construction to
bodily adornment. When I asked the Butbut why such a practice of
tattooing outsiders was allowed – isolated from their collectively held
cultural norms, values and beliefs – most simply answered that the con-
text of these tattoos had changed, indicating that, despite traditionally
inscribed notions, cultural definitions of tattoos also transform through
time. The Butbut understand that tattooing is a source of identity or
individuality and that tattoos satisfy deeply personal and private inten-
tions. Such acts are seen both to validate tradition and address
contemporary needs.
Internet tourism has also been instrumental in the spread of informa-
tion on Kalinga tattoos, and on the tattoo practitioner Whang-ud in
particular. In 2010, an Internet search on the terms ‘Kalinga’ and/or
‘Kalinga tattoos’ would readily yield: (1) recent photographs of various
elderly tattooed men and women from Butbut and different parts of the
Kalinga region and the Cordilleras – all these are based on (2) travel
(‘roadtrips’) and tattoo blogs or articles of local and foreign tattoo en-
thusiasts who went to northern Luzon and were tattooed by Whang-ud;
(3) academic papers with archival photographs of tattoos and line draw-
ings of tattoos in northern Luzon; and (4) videos and clips of the actual
tattooing process culled from feature documentaries made by local and
foreign television. Recently, Whang-ud has been touted as ‘the last
Kalinga tattoo artist of the Philippines’, practising the ‘vanishing art of
 Batok (traditional tattoos) in diaspora 309

tattooing’ of the ‘last headhunters in Kalinga’ (Krutak, 2008, 2009, 2010,

pp 182–185; David, 2010). The idea that her art is vanishing, exclusive
and place-based gives her tattoos an aura of authenticity that has helped
Kalinga designs gain popularity in the local and foreign media and on
the Internet.
The majority of Whang-ud’s predecessors have died. Whang-ud’s age
has caused her to become sedentary, as are many of her few remaining
Kalinga tattoo practitioner contemporaries, whose aged bodies and poor
eyesight prevent them from travelling far and limit their ability to prac-
tise. In the village, there are few computers and no Internet connection.
Thus Whang-ud is largely unaware of her visibility and permanence on
the Internet, where both facts and fictions about traditional tattoos cir-
culate. However, what demonstrates the resurgence of tattoos is precisely
the reversal of this pattern of traditional practitioners’ mobility. In the
past, it was common for tattooists to move about from village to vil-
lage. Today, it is the tattoos that enjoy mobility. Local and foreign tourists
physically and virtually travel to the village of Buscalan to have tat-
toos, which they carry with them, dispersing her tattoo designs around
the world: among them, as I discuss below, are diasporic Filipinos.

Diasporic Filipinos: tattoos as a site of authenticity

As I have shown, in the past, traditional tattoos were important in shap-
ing Kalinga personhood. These tattoo designs have now become
important in twenty-first century Filipino diasporic identity politics.
Being diaspora stimulates people to express multiple conceptions of
identity. For Filipinos, these identities often entail exploring ethnic and
national and anticolonial belongings simultaneously (see also Longboan,
this issue). Mendoza (2006, p 187) notes that ‘a curious phenomenon in
the United States is that of US-born Filipino–Americans trekking (lit-
erally) for the first time to a homeland they are now only beginning to
reclaim as their newly-constructed sense of identification’. These Fili-
pino–Americans who arrive in Butbut seeking tattoos are mainly young
urban-dwelling adults and professionals who were either born overseas
or who migrated with their families as young children.
One such individual is Filipino–American Reynaldo Pellos (35), an
environmental engineering graduate from San Diego who was a Peace
Corps volunteer in Kibungan, Benguet for five years. The ‘search’ for
his Filipino roots led him to books on Philippine history and Internet
sites that contained information on Filipino customs and traditions. What
was impressed on him when he saw Whang-ud’s work on the Internet
310 South East Asia Research

Figure 3. Whang-ud tattoos Reynaldo Pellos on his upper right back shoulder for
about two hours through hand-tapping, using traditional tattoo instruments.
Photograph provided by Ruel Bimuyag. Reproduced by permission.

and heard of her practice from other friends in the Cordillera was that
his expression of his ‘Filipino-ness’ could be made permanent through
her tattoos. Reynaldo felt that he could find and fix his Filipino identity
by going back to the place of origin of these tattoos to be tattooed him-
self. Reynaldo’s desire took him on a trek to the mountain regions of
the Cordillera, where he saw first-hand the tattooed elders from Bontoc
and Kalinga. In June 2009, he made his way to the village of Buscalan
to meet Whang-ud. Reynaldo was tattooed by Whang-ud with a gayaman
[centipede] and alam-am [fern] to represent his environmental leanings
(Figures 3 and 4). For Reynaldo, the tattoo experience with ‘pain and
blood’ is very meaningful because it marks a passage of sorts. The tat-
toos signify the completion of the work he had set out to do in the
Cordilleras. Villagers in Buscalan approved of Reynaldo’s tattoos. He
is likewise proud of the designs because of the personal connection the
tattoo has enabled. This, he says, is unlike the practice in America where
tattoos are used for ‘showing off’ in public, even by Filipinos. Reynaldo
also remarked that, although he had lived in the USA for a long time, he
felt that he was ‘not actually part of it’. For Reynaldo, the tattoos affirm
 Batok (traditional tattoos) in diaspora 311

Figure 4. Pellos tattooed by Whang-ud with gayaman [centipede] and alam-am [fern]
to represent his passion for the environment.
Photograph by Analyn Salvador-Amores.

and express his Filipino identity and at the same time help him make
sense of his bilingual and bicultural life as a Filipino–American.
Melisa Casumbal-Salazar (40) is a US-born Filipina doctoral student
at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, whose research on the signifi-
cance of corporeality in women’s protests against the Chico Dam and
open-cast mining in Kalinga and Bontoc from the 1970s–90s brought
her to Kalinga and Bontoc in 2009–10. From her exposure to literature
312 South East Asia Research

on Kalinga and her brief stay in my fieldwork site for my kammid [adop-
tion ritual], she learned about the tattoos and the culture of the Butbut
people. Although she initially had no intention of having a tattoo done
while in Buscalan, the experience of travelling the long distance to visit
Whang-ud, the knowledge she gained about the tattoos and Whang-
ud’s significance and renown as one of the oldest living practitioners of
traditional Kalinga tattooing convinced her that to be tattooed by Whang-
ud was an experience she could not pass up. My role in the tattooing
session was to draw the design on her skin with a ballpoint pen, which
Whang-ud would tattoo on Melisa’s upper left arm later. The triangular
aspect of the design represents the five villages of Butbut traversing the
mountains above and below [ngatu and daya] Buscalan, and the zigzag
lines represent the Chico River running through the mountains in Bugnay,
another Butbut village. Although the tattoo was drawn on Melisa’s skin,
Whang-ud rendered the design differently according to her intuition as
the tattoo progressed. The resultant tattoos with their ‘imperfect’ lines
and ‘unfinished’ patterned effect lent a ‘traditional feel’, unlike that
required by Western tattoo aesthetics (that is, coloured, fine-lined and
finished).
Reynaldo and Melisa are two examples of Filipino–Americans who
travelled to and went ‘trekking’ in the Philippines to have tattoos. Other
diasporic Filipinos obtained their Kalinga tattoos without physically
making their way to Buscalan. In these instances, traditional tattoo de-
signs copied or ‘appropriated’ from archival photographs published in
National Geographic magazine (Worcester, 1912, 1913) and publica-
tions on the Internet are rendered in ink by professional tattoo artists in
the USA. Contemporary interpretations of tattoos made by enthusiasts
(and non-enthusiasts alike) derive from the historical uses and under-
standing of tattooing. While the image of deviance signified by tattoos
continues to exist in North America, these nonetheless have become
considerably more open to interpretation and subject to situated defini-
tion (Atkinson, 2003, pp 23–24). For instance, with the resurgence of
tattooing in the mainland USA, Filipino–Americans gained new impe-
tus to explore their new-found identities: ‘this born again Filipino
experience led to Filipino Americans walking about the campus sport-
ing tattoos written in alibata or the ancient script of the early Filipinos’
(Mendoza, 2006, pp 152–153).
The tattoo as ‘quaint relic of the past’ seems to have particularly cap-
tured the imagination of a Filipino–American organization called Tatak
ng Apat na Alon [Mark of the Four Waves Inc]. Established in 1998, the
 Batok (traditional tattoos) in diaspora 313

group’s name alludes to the four-wave migration theory that explained

the societies of the early Philippines. The group includes about 90–100
tattooed members – mostly professionals and students from Los Ange-
les and from other parts of the USA who seek to revive traditional tattoos
by putting permanent markings on their skin. Applicants for group mem-
bership must undertake a study of Filipino culture. Being tattooed is
optional for members, but most members have chosen tattoos of tradi-
tional motifs culled from old photographs and images of tattooed people
from the past. Traditional designs thus gain new expression on contem-
porary bodies as part of diasporic community formation and identity
politics. Here, the reconstruction of new identities has been abetted by
and proliferated through technological breakthroughs such as print and
photographs, TV and satellite images, and even museums and maps
(Anderson, 1983). Technology provides for ease in transferring tradi-
tional tattoo designs from all around the Philippines to bodies in the
USA that are then tattooed using modern implements.
Thus far, I have talked about the ways in which the real and virtual
travels of diasporic Filipinos and other tourists and the accompanying
circulation of tattoos on bodies and in digital form have contributed to
a revival in Kalinga tattooing. The final case relates the stories of two
tattooed elders, Lasoy (80) and Arumbaya (66), who migrated to the
USA to live with their children in Mississippi and New York respec-
tively. Lasoy Gunnawa (81), of Lubo, Tanudan was 13 when she was
tattooed. The process took two years to complete. She has among the
rarest tattoos for women on her forearms and neck. When Lasoy mi-
grated to the USA with her equally tattooed husband in 1986, she was
an instant ‘cool grandma’ in a contemporary American society that is
now more accepting of tattoos than the turn-of-the-century colonizers
who sought to discourage and conceal the practice among their colo-
nized peoples. Many people who stopped to admire her beautiful tattoos
would eventually end up having their pictures taken with her. Lasoy
was proud to be photographed at a local museum in the USA in 2002
with her beautiful tattoos (Figure 5). According to Lasoy’s daughters
Dominica (61) and Josefa (42), their mother did not encounter any nega-
tive experiences with her tattoos, ‘because many Americans have tattoos
and they appreciate tattoos as a form of body art’.
In the case of Arumbaya (64), who left for the USA in 2003 to join
her youngest daughter, she was initially hesitant to reveal her tattoos
while in the States for fear of being labelled as a ‘criminal’, as she had
experienced once before in Baguio City in the Philippines. In the USA,
314 South East Asia Research

Figure 5. Lasoy’s portrait shows the beautiful tattoos on her arms, lower neck and
shoulders – all signify the affluent status of her family. Her tattoos also follow a pattern
similar to that of her skirt [kain].
Photograph provided by the Gunnawa family. Reproduced by permission.

however, she says that people have come to her and admired her beau-
tiful tattoos. For Arumbaya, seeing many colourfully tattooed people in
the USA made her feel pride in her Kalinga identity – especially so
when her daughter explained the meanings of the tattoos to Arumbaya’s
grandchildren, and how these are not mere charcoal drawings, but marks
of beauty and bravery.
 Batok (traditional tattoos) in diaspora 315

Lasoy’s and Arumbaya’s stories do not so much complete the migra-

tory circle as demonstrate the intersections of Kalinga tattoos and
diasporic Filipinos’ varied social and historical biographies. Appadurai
(1988, p 5) suggests that it is not just people that have social lives and
histories, but objects too. Tattoos appear to be such ‘objects’. As digital
images, tattoos, like other objects, may be separated from the people
who make and are made by them. However, as embodied artefacts, they
are not so easily detached from the person wearing them and thus ac-
quire ‘biographies’ in much the same way that the bodies that bear them
do. It is perhaps that indivisible combination of embodied media that
links the real and virtual ‘treks’ of disaporic Filipinos such as Melisa
and Reynaldo and the Four Waves group to seek out Kalinga designs
with the migrant stories of Lasoy and Arumbaya whose traditions are
carried with them on their bodies: for each, tattoos are the medium through
which they create and renew a sense of being ‘at home.’

Conclusion
Kalinga tattoos have meanings that have been ascribed to them by ‘tra-
dition’, but media and mobility have seen tattoos’ meanings both
transformed and augmented through the diaspora. The proliferation of
spaces to represent tattoos as an intrinsic part of Filipino culture (the
Internet, photographs, print adverts) has enabled easy access to tradi-
tional tattoo designs that the young generation can ‘copy’, ‘borrow’,
‘transfer’ and appropriate in a variety of ways. Here we see an instance
of what, following Hobsbawm (1983), might be termed the revival of
tradition as diasporically imagined selves are materialized through tat-
toos. This revival is not only enabled by the search for ‘authentic tattoos’
among local and foreign tourists who travel to the village of Buscalan,
but, in this example, the tattoos themselves have been revitalized and
made mobile through the media and the Internet in particular.
The Internet has become an efficacious medium for the dissemina-
tion of information on tattoos, the novelty of the form and the designs,
the ‘traditionality’ of the process of tattooing, the location and purpose
of tattoos. The Internet, showing photographs of Whang-ud in a tattoo-
ing session, or pictures of historic designs, offers a visual resource (tattoo
designs) and a cultural practice (tattooing) through which diasporans
can experiment with and reshape their malleable and multiple identi-
ties. Arguably, Whang-ud’s tattooing tools are just as much a site for
the production of an authentic Kalinga identity as the Internet, blogs
316 South East Asia Research

and photographs, but her practice shows that diaspora are mediated by
the flesh (Whang-ud) and the bodily inscriptions (tattoos) on it. In other
words, it is not just the features of the technological advance (pixels
and sound waves transmitted electronically) that mediate diaspora: the
batok [tattoos] themselves do the work of mediating diaspora as objects
that make and mark exchanges, people and relations of cultural and
social importance. Those bodily mediated relations in turn shape and
enact connections between particular spaces and times.
In tattoo festivals, street dancing and tattoo conventions, diasporic
bodies in the USA and elsewhere are marked with tattoos that physi-
cally connect them to Butbut/Kalinga. In Butbut today, much is
remembered about socially essential tattooing, including the social po-
sitions and personalities of important Kalinga tattoo experts in the past.
Yet this memory is juxtaposed with or complemented by new practices
of temporary tattoo markings in imitation of traditional tattoos, which
are worn on special occasions to emphasize a specific identity. As the
Internet has affected tourism in Buscalan, Butbut tattoos, Whang-ud
and the tattooed elders (process, tattoos and flesh), the tattoo revival
has been instrumental in reinventing aspects of Butbut indigeneity as
globally Filipino.

Acknowledgments
My research is generously supported by the International Fellowships
Program of the Ford Foundation, Philippine Social Science Council
Research Grant, the University of the Philippines, and the E.O. James
Bequest of All Souls College & Hertford College at the University of
Oxford. Thanks to my supervisors Marcus Banks and Elizabeth Ewart
for their continued support and to Deirdre McKay and Mark Johnson
for their editorial suggestions. I am grateful to Grace Subido for a pre-
liminary reading of my paper and for the anonymous reviewers’
comments. I would like to thank Willy Alangui, Jeffrey Estigoy and
Alice Follosco for help with the maps. I am extremely grateful to the
Butbut people for their warmth and hospitality during my stay in
Tinglayan and Tabuk, Kalinga.

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