Buscalan and the Kalinga Tattoo Tradition

Hand Tapped Batok Tattooing In A Working Kalinga Village That Receives More Visitors In A Week Than It Has People · Tinglayan, Kalinga

BUSCALAN IS A SMALL KALINGA VILLAGE ON A MOUNTAINSIDE ABOVE RICE TERRACES, AND IT IS WHERE BATOK IS STILL DONE - tattooing by hand, with a thorn set in a stick, tapped through the skin with a second stick, using soot ink. WHANG-OD OGGAY MADE IT FAMOUS AND SHE IS NOW EXTRAORDINARILY OLD; IN PRACTICE HER APPRENTICES DO MOST OF THE TATTOOING AND SHE OFTEN GIVES ONLY HER SIGNATURE THREE DOTS. THE HONEST PART IS WHAT THE ATTENTION HAS DONE. Hundreds of visitors arrive in a village of a few hundred people; QUEUES RUN FOR HOURS; and the designs, which once marked headhunting for men and coming of age for women, ARE NOW MOSTLY WORN BY OUTSIDERS WHO HAVE NO CLAIM TO WHAT THEY MEANT. That tension is not resolved and pretending otherwise is dishonest. The trek in is real and homestays are how the village is paid. There is no road in - visitors leave the vehicle at the Bugnay junction and walk thirty to forty-five minutes up, with registration and a local guide compulsory at the bottom.

Buscalan, Tinglayan, Kalinga, Cordillera, Tinglayan, Kalinga, Philippines

BUSCALAN IS REACHED FROM BONTOC OR TABUK by jeepney or van to the BUGNAY JUNCTION on the mountain road, then a WALK OF ROUGHLY THIRTY TO FORTY-FIVE MINUTES up a narrow trail - there is no road into the village. REGISTRATION AND A LOCAL GUIDE ARE COMPULSORY and are arranged at the junction; VISITORS STAY IN HOMESTAYS, which is how the money reaches households rather than operators. TATTOOING IS DONE ON A QUEUE SYSTEM THAT RUNS FOR HOURS AND SOMETIMES DAYS at busy periods, and NOTHING IS GUARANTEED - who tattoos you depends on who is working. CARRY CASH; there is no banking of any kind. IT IS COLD AT NIGHT. The Cordillera roads slide in the typhoon season, roughly July to October, and getting out can take longer than getting in.

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