A lot of people have asked me if it was painful. Yes, it bloody was. Right before we started, Apo Whang-Od warned me in her language that it was going to be painful. But I had already made up my mind. For someone with high pain threshold like me, I gotta admit, the pain was effin’ overwhelming. Hey, it’s my cervical spine after all. I’ve got three other tattoos (one of which was made the day before by Grace, Apo’s grandniece) but this one engraved by Apo Whang-Od was the best in every aspect I could think of, so I made sure to savor every moment of it.I didn’t include a travel guide in this blog post of mine since there are tons of blogs online which can teach you on how to get to this place. Considering this place has become a mainstream travel destination because of Apo Whang-Od, loads of travel events which you can check out on Facebook are being organized on a weekly basis. PS: Please don’t imitate what I did in this photo overlooking the mountains of Kalinga.We reached Buscalan village of the Butbut tribe after an hour of hiking from where we parked our van. It was almost sundown that Saturday when Grace, Apo Whang-Od’s niece, finished doing this tattoo of mine. This image is a series of hourglasses or rice mortars, a symbol which serves as a spiritual shield. Apo Whang-Od then inked my tattoo the next day before we headed back to Manila. It was part of my plan to have a tattoo done by Grace and one made by Apo as I wanted to bridge the new generation of traditional tattoo artists with the original generation of Apo as she is considered the last “mambabatok” of her era.This is what it looked like the day after. I always felt nervous before going to sleep. I was extremely paranoid that the scabs would fall off due to my sudden shifting movements while asleep. I really couldn’t afford to sleep on my belly because I’ve got back problems. This tattoo by the way is called “malu”, a variation of crab (kappi) symbol. It is named after the god Lumauig, whose name means “the traveler”. I know some would make remarks that the lines are crooked and all that jazz, but that’s actually the beauty of it. This craft was made by the hands of the last “mambabatok”. The imperfections are the elements that make this masterpiece so special. I will always be grateful that I have a piece of this ethnic art on my skin. I now belong to a proud indigenous culture of my country.It’s been more than four years but my cellular memory still remembers every ounce of that excruciating pain as Apo continuously hit my vertebrae to imprint the traveler symbol on my nape. This visit of mine in Buscalan in 2014 marked the precious day of me finally becoming part of a Philippine tradition of indigenous body art that is believed to be 1000 years old.
***For more photos in Buscalan, please click this link. For other destinations in Cordillera, you may visit this link.
