Batok: Micro-Essays on Indigenism, Craft, and Matrilineality
Narisma
For Whang-od Oggay
The Kalinga province remains shrouded by the humid forests of northern Philippines, where, unlike dozens and dozens of other Filipino ethnic groups, the various sub-tribes of this mountainous region have retained much of their original culture. A combination of brutal terrain and combatant nature have allowed them to remain relatively untouched by centuries of Spanish, American, and Japanese colonization. Violence is really only one aspect of Kalinga survival. Protection and safekeeping, community and filial duty; there are so many more dimensions to the agonizing process of self-preservation.
a. Sometimes I think about the person I would be if my foremothers never left the province for the city. Imagine what it would be like to wake up inside a bahay kubo instead of a bed here in urban Manila. It is both a marvel and a tragedy that my skin bends towards metropolitan sunlight, and not the morning sky that my people first knew. Who would I be if my foremothers never stopped plucking rice and corn from that endless meadow? How much of my reality is shaped by the decisions my ancestors have made?
2. Batok: a traditional Kalinga art of tattooing using indigenous materials.
a. Whang-od’s brown fingers work deftly on the customer. She taps the charcoal-and-water pigment into the skin using a pomelo thorn. Like a needle in the doctor’s office, stabbing the same square of flesh, over and over again. The instrument was chosen from one of their trees—a squatting thing made of ripe fruit and barb. Both beauty and blade. Ancient, Whang-od’s technique is more painful compared to modern machines. But how else can we connect to the spirits of our past?
i. Fi-ing refers to batok done on male Butbut warriors who have slain an enemy. Whang-od practiced this until headhunting was eventually outlawed in the 1930’s. Fatok refers to batok done on women for beautification.
ii. Whang-od only does fortune telling and chants when tattooing her own people, but she still welcomes Buscalan tourists. If you are ever blessed to be in her presence while she’s working, you can still hear prophecy and old song, hanging in the air and clinging to the water vapor.
3. Most people agree that batok takes about a month to heal. If your flesh did not riot during the actual ceremony, then you still have the following week to deal with inflammation and tenderness. You are advised to keep the tattoo out of sunlight or water for long periods of time, so as not to ruin the final outcome. I like to consider batok a way of reconciling with our earthen roots. Returning to the soil from which we came. After years of trying to wrench the wilderness out of our bodies, there is still a fragment of yearning, of first light, of first dirt.
a. The first time I saw someone my age with a tattoo was my junior year of high school. We were in the gym together and as he lifted his arms up overhead, I noticed the small black cross on his ribs, right beneath his left nipple. This felt strangely intimate, although I realized that this wasn’t an uncommon tattoo for white pubescent missionary boys. I’ve seen at least four guys all with the same design in the same place. My fifth grade teacher also had a tattoo—a dove on the back of his calf. Spread-winged, as though it were trying to escape the flesh. So many of us choose to mark ourselves publicly to the world, but I think half the time, no one knows what their own brandings mean.
4. As a young woman, Whang-od had a lover, Ang-Batang. She was his tattooist upon his first victory in battle. It is said that the elders opposed them, seeing her bloodline as impure. Like an act of mockery, Ang-Batang was arranged to marry Whang-od’s best friend, Hogkajon.
a. Think of all the times love has been bruised in the name of avoiding miscegenation. My father is a foreigner, my blood runs from two sides of the globe. Think of how we must carry ourselves, how my bones refuse to be bartered. No, I am not defiled. No, I am not incomplete. No, I am not a half-breed son.
b. Ang-Batang died in an accident when Whang-od was 25 years old. And although they never reunited, I imagine that the forest grieved with her. From Abra to Isabela to Apayao, the motherland mourned. Our trees wept kalamansi and our anthuriums folded closed.
c. Rebecca T. Añonuevo wrote, “Ibang pagkamatay / Ang sadyang pagpatay sa pag-ibig / Hangga’t maaga.” Another death / the deliberate killing of love / as early as possible.
5. Whang-od’s batok designs are known to be intricate lace-works of art. Besides basic geometric patterns, she also uses forms existing in nature. If your body was stamped with an age-old rune, would that make you something of a spell yourself? Earth to skin, a transference of life found in soil, wood, and water. Our primordiality is preserved in how we wear our people’s essence on our own bodies. An origin for an origin. An etymology floating to the surface.
a. Whang-od received her first tattoo as a teenager—a ladder and a python. As a child, I recall my grandmother hating snakes. She called them minions of the devil, wicked. But growing up, I was always fascinated by them. Their winding, limbless bodies; how they glide from land to water and back again. Their soft hissing like a secret spilling from scaly lips.
i. The Bakunawa is a sea serpent in Philippine mythology. It is said that the god Bathala made seven moons for each night of the week, but the Bakunawa would rise from the water with its gigantic jaws, eventually swallowing all but one of the lights. When the Bakunawa tried to devour the last queen of the sky, the people on earth moaned, banging their pots and pans. The Bakunawa finally spat out the moon, and the people screamed in joy, lifting their hearts to the heavens. This was believed to be the reason we have solar eclipses.
6. At over 100 years old, Whang-od is considered the last mambabatok (traditional Kalinga tattooist). She performs simpler designs now. Her signature tattoo is composed of three dots, symbolizing herself and her two apprentices. An art form for survival, a memory kept alive.
a. Whang-od began tattooing at the age of 15. Tradition dictates that only men with batok ancestry could learn the art. Despite this, her father, a master tattooist, recognized her talent and trained her, whereupon she swiftly turned into a master in her own right.
i. My sister and I were raised as equals. Her light for my light, her blood for mine. My grandmother was a pastora and high elder in our church. Her daughter received a degree in theology at the age of forty. The other became a computer whiz and raised my sister and I as her own. My entire life has been marked by the victories of women, and their legacy shall be protected.
b. Whang-od’s chosen students consist of only women, unshackling her Kalinga sisters from patrimony for the first time in recorded history. Whang-od never married or had children; the Kalinga believe that a family’s tattoo skills can only be inherited through lineage, or the tattoos will become corrupted. Thus, although she has about 20 students, her grandnieces Grace and Ilyang are her true apprentices. They are the only known remaining learners of the craft.
i. Hundreds of tourists, even from overseas, have traveled to be graced by Whang-od’s presence. They are always warned beforehand of the journey that lies ahead of them. From bus ride to jeepney to mountain hike, the trip is not for the faint of heart. But still, people flock to Whang-od’s village to witness the living miracle themselves. Her art can now persist in more ways than she’s ever imagined.
ii. “Ibang pagkamatay / Ang sadyang pagpatay sa pag-ibig / Hangga’t maaga”
I. If we have the chance to save the love of two young dreamers, then we can also save the love of our people. This heritage, this labor—may it never grow cold again.
7. Aside from tattooing, Whang-od is a village elder. She helps feed the pigs and chickens, and works at the rice farm. On some nights, she pulls out her tongali and blows melodies into the cooling air strewn with fireflies.
a. I believe that my grandmother’s hands were like Whang-od’s. Tan with a thousand lifetimes of sun; creased with wisdom and silver and old age. Oftentimes, while crossing the street, my grandmother would grip my arm in a peculiar way, with her fingers clenched around my forearm. To this day, I feel her warmth on my skin. Even now, her evening prayers burn in my chest. In my dreams, she’s still smiling. In my dreams, she’s still here.
Notes:
Bahay kubo: nipa hut; indigenous Filipino stilt house
Kalamansi: a type of Filipino citrus fruit
Pastora: a female pastor
Tongali: Kalinga nose flute
