The Rhythm of Thorns

Apo Whang-Od is tired.

The 95-year-old mambabatok, tattoo artist, sets her tools in a soot-stained plastic ice cream tub, and wipes her intricately-inked wrinkly hands on the sides of her shirt as she slowly stands up from the rock she was sitting on in front of her decrepit wood-and-tin house, which also serves as her tattoo shop, in the mountain village of Buscalan, Kalinga.

She has just finished working on a tourist’s arm kayyaman, a centipede tattoo believed to bring the gods’ guide and protection to its bearer. But the work is not quite done yet, for the client, a young lawyer and previous tattoo virgin, wants another whatek, another tattoo – a five-inch python slithering next to the centipede.

The remaining job is left by Apo for her teenage grandniece and only apprentice, Gracia “Grace” Palicas, to continue.

Sitting on her grandaunt’s rock, the budding tattoo artist gathers herself and slips into pure concentration. In a split second, the bubbly girl with the playful smile is gone. Through her dark almond eyes, you might think her soul has drifted somewhere distant. Yet, the way she moves tells you that she remains united with her body, and allows the rustling of the trees and the sound of the wind to take control of it.

She fixes her eyes on the tourist’s bleeding bicep, and gently trails her fingers on his skin. She takes one last deep breath before she finally starts drawing the python with a bamboo strip dipped in whiyug, a soot-derived ink.

The python, a symbol of strength, is depicted by the Kalingas through uncomplicated lines and geometrical patterns, which, when put together, look like a chain of squares, linked from corner to corner with two stripes inside.

It does not take another minute after completing the snake’s outline for Grace to start hammering the ink into her client’s skin by striking the gisi – a tool fashioned from a stick and pomelo thorn, which serves as the needle – with a pat-ik, a long and sturdy wooden rod.

Tick – tick – tick – tick – tick…

The sound of wood beating wood beating skin is fast like a metronome on an overdrive. It conjures a unique melody that joins nature and spirit. Above all, it is a rhythm that reverberates an ancient Philippine tradition that has been practiced for thousands of years, with a future now in the hands of a bright-eyed 18-year-old girl.

Grace and the Whatek

Dubbed as the most beautiful young woman in Buscalan, Grace has a silky black river of hair flowing from her head to the middle of her back, enviable sun-kissed brown skin, and an infectious smile. She is not tall, but her muscled arms and legs speak for her strength.

Just like most teenage girls, her toenails are painted. For this week, she chose a nice periwinkle blue shade. An ornate half bracelet tattoo, a collection of thick and fine zigzag lines, wraps the area just below her right arm’s inner elbow. She has two other tattoos inked on her back by Whang-Od, including a kayyaman, her favorite design.

Grace developed a keen interest in her tribe’s tattooing custom at a tender age, and began learning the art of the whatek through her apo Whang-Od when she turned ten. The time she had away from rice paddies, school, and house chores, she spent on polishing her tattooing skills, her little hands meticulously mimicking the movements of her grandaunt’s, hoping one day, she’d be able to perfect her talent.

“I am confident that it is Grace who will take over my place as this tribe’s mambabatok when I’m already too weak to work,” apo Whang-Od says in the Kalinga dialect.

Eight years later, Grace has dropped out of college, completely ending her short-lived dream of becoming a teacher and totally committing herself to the whatek tradition, carving a name of her own – quite literally – in the rich tattooing scene one body at a time.

“Ipagpapatuloy ko pa rin ‘to kahit anong mangyari,” the girl is steadfast in defending her duty as the only guardian of her tribe’s vanishing custom.

While the number of Kalinga’s mamababatoks has gone down from a handful to two, people wishing to get a whatek are growing at a surprisingly fast rate, keeping Grace and her apo preoccupied every week with throngs and throngs of clients, Filipino and foreign, who hike for some two hours from the main road in Bugnay, another village in the municipality of Tinglayan, to reach Buscalan and get inked.

“Halos araw-araw may nagpapatattoo dito. Kapag holiday, mas marami ang dumadayo. Nagkakapila yung mga gustong magpatattoo,” Grace says.

The whatek gained popularity among thrill seekers and tattoo aficionados, when it received coverage from mainstream media in the 2000s, a result of the piqued interests of local and international documentarians, including renowned American tattoo anthropologist Lars Krutak, who featured the Kalinga tattoo in “Tattoo Hunter”, a series of documentaries about indigenous body art forms aired on the Discovery Channel.

Although the reemergence of the Kalinga tattoo is seemingly healthy for the region’s tourism and the tradition itself, it is its true essence that’s gradually becoming obsolete.

The whatek used to be reserved only for the brave head hunters of Kalinga, who defend their tribes from intruders and enemies, and Kalinga women, who wear tattoos on their bodies as marks of beauty and to bring fertility. Inked Kalinga women accentuate the concept of ambaru, the concept of beauty.

Today, however, the whatek is often treated more like a souvenir or reward for making the dangerous trip to and from Buscalan. 

Nevertheless, Grace considers tourists sporting Kalinga tattoos as an extension of their culture. “Hindi lang Kalinga ang may tradisyon [ng pagtatattoo],” she says. “Marami tayong kababayang naghahanap ng tatak Pilipino.”

She also heavily disagrees with people who call her apo Whang-Od the “last” Kalinga tattoo artist. “Siya lang yung last sa old generation. Ako na yung new generation na mambabatok,” she explains.

In an effort to keep the custom alive outside Kalinga and in sync with the beat of the modern Filipino life, Grace takes part in the annual Dutdutan – a tattoo convention in Manila that exhibits the talents of the finest Filipino tattoo artists – on behalf of Whang-Od, who is now too weak to travel.

“Lahat sila, puro ‘bzzzzz’ yung tunog ng pangtattoo nila. Sa akin lang yung maingay na tick-tick-tick yung tunog,” Grace laughs, recounting her first Dutdutan experience.

In a few days, she will be setting out on another journey to Manila for her sophomore stint at Dutdutan. Grace proudly says that the event’s organizer Ricky Sta. Ana, himself, invited her to participate in the two-day convention, which will be held on September 26 to 27, 2014. She obliged, with high hopes of introducing her tribe’s culture to more people in the country’s capital.

Dutdutan 2014

It’s a few minutes past one in the afternoon on a Saturday, and the crowd at the Kalinga tattoo booth near the entrance has grown once again. Bewildered eyes are fixed on the chocolate-skinned teenage girl, who is hammering ink into the forearm of a man with the use of sticks and a thorn. Some are snapping photos. Some are taking videos.

This is the kind of sight that even a heavily-tattooed man would stop to see.

But Grace remains indifferent to all the attention she’s getting. She has slipped back into her own realm that is not to be disturbed by anyone.

Tick – tick – tick – tick – tick…

Grace has already tattooed dozens of people since the opening of Dutdutan 2014. Today is the convention’s last day and business is still going strong. A lot of her clients are foreigners and professionals, most of them driven by curiosity to get a whatek.

In Buscalan, Grace would take any amount, even a simple present like a box of sweets, from tourists after inking them. But in Dutdutan, the prices of exhibitors’ services are fixed. For a whatek, one has to pay one to two thousand Pesos, depending on the pattern’s size and intricacy.

Seated on a black cushioned chair, Grace’s client watches the thorn play a painful game on his skin. He chose to have a series of arrows inked underneath his completely-healed kayyaman. He has subjected himself to the same ordeal in the past, and yet, he still winces every now and then as Grace hammers the ink into his skin.

The ways people deal with getting a whatek greatly differ, and Grace has seen them all. There are some who have screamed or pulled their bodies back in fear of the thorn, but most who find the ritual painful often go through it in silence. There are also some others who sing, just like how the tribal elders of Kalinga would, whilst getting their tattoos back in the day.

Only a few have described getting a whatek “painless”, including a woman in her fifties who dropped by Grace’s booth to have a centipede done on her back. “It’s not painful at all,” she kept saying. The hint of disbelief in her tone never faded.

Grace is down to the last arrow, and the crowd has begun to thin.

The audience of the young mambabatok come and go, but one can easily tell when she has stopped tapping. It’s when the frantic ticking of an invisible bomb comes to an abrupt halt.

Beads of crimson-red blood seep through her client’s exhausted skin, which Grace carefully wipes off with a piece of fabric dipped in oil. She takes one last look at the fresh whatek, and leaves it to be admired by its bearer.

It is complete…

And it is beautiful.

♥Andz