#Kalingas

[balkanparamo]

Indigenous (Kalinga tribe) Filipina beauty of yore

[avoidghost]

I think I’m finally settled on my Roddy design ☺️

bonus (d)ratchrod bcus I love them 🥺💖

[aworldofpattern]

Miss Universe Philippines 2023, Michelle Marquez Dee, wearing a gown designed with Mark Bumgarner.

The design was inspired by the traditional tattoos of Maria Whang Od Oggay, popularly known as Apo Whang Od (pictured below).

At age 106, she is the oldest tattoo artist, or 'mambabatok', from Kalinga in the Philippines.

[nxrmanreedussy]

yknow what why not lol

Here’s one of the three MK ocs I’ve been working on! His names Sandro and he’s painfully Filipino owch.

Here’s his wu shi outfit :3

I also don’t have detailed lore for him yet? But all I got right now is he ran away from his family when he was younger and because he had nowhere to go, he started going to this underground boxing thing and he eventually became one of their leading champions lol.

Another thing is I kinna also made him the descendant of the Filipino war god Apolaki but it also his boxer title or whatever (SOBBING)

I might elaborate more soon but here’s just the tip of the iceberg cuz I still have to design his brother💔

thx for listening😭

[mankadavi]

commission for a friend 💕

[commission info]

[ritish16]

Mahakali

[not-your-asian-fantasy]

[d-a-mante]

Been seeing that tattoo post around and I'm guessing most of y'all are too white to chime in, so:

Filipino here. I'm not of the cultures that practice tattoos (it was lost to a large part of the country), I'm Tagalog. Closest I could ask about the tattoos was a Cordilleran, which is at least in the same region.

Symbolic tattoos have to look exactly the same to matter. In the example given (the triangles and lines, going around the collar), the tattoos look similar. But not the same, not really. Maybe combining the patterns is part of the culture and that's what they're seeing, but it wasn't clear from the example.

Judkins didn't mention if their artist was indegenous. But Filipinos aren't the only indigenous peoples who used tattoos with geometric patterns (imo the patterns aren't what's too similar, it's the placement on the body). Could be the artist was Filipino, another ethnicity, or white and geometric patterns are just coincidental. Maybe they should've asked before getting worked up.

[nickysfacts]

A long time ago two Ashokas went on a quest for moral redemption, changing their worlds forever!

🧡🇮🇳🤍

[witekspicsoldpostcards]

King of Kalinga province, Igorot Girl Mission Philippines / 1927

[randomlifeofmine]

Scenic Mountains

[yearningforunity]

Studio portrait of a Klingalese woman.

Stafhell & Kleingrothe (Fotostudio), 1890-1905.

[accuratepicuresofanthropologists]

Michiko Takaki was a Japanese student of Hal Conklin's who spent four (4!) years in the field with Kalinga people. Here is an amazing story which deserves more coverage! Via the Smithsonian

[jinyuwintravels]

📍 Buscalan Village, Tinglayan, Kalinga

🗓️ May 14, 2022

❓ I first learned about Whang-Od when I was still in college, maybe around 2007-08. I have always been fascinated but I have no plans to get a tattoo yet. From what I've heard, it's not very hygienic to get a "batok" tattoo. They said Whang-od uses the same "thorn" for everyone in line and only changes when it breaks. Aside from this, the road from the Buscalan drop-off to Whang-od's village is very difficult to traverse because of the steepness of the cliffs and the area being underdeveloped.

Fast forward to 2022, also because of the pandemic, I'm thinking about a lot of things that might never happen, and one of them is getting a tattoo from Whang-od. At that time, she was said to be 105 years old although this is debated.

I already have one tattoo, a machine tattoo, and for me it's time for a new tattoo (queue Urbandub). So I joined a tour to "Buscalan", which took around 14 hours from Manila. We arrived early morning, around 4am but they said we couldn't go to the village yet because it was dangerous to hike at dawn. So we waited for the sunrise before going up, actually, we went down and then went up.

Just to share, I just came from my work shift and haven't slept yet. I didn't get to sleep in the car either. I also didn't have breakfast before climbing. So when we were going up, the hike was supposed to be relatively easy, maybe 30 minutes. When we got close to the village, maybe 100 steps, I got a little dizzy haha. So I sat down for a while and rested. I was accompanied by a guide and the other climbers also helped. Someone gave me candy, someone picked any leaf from the side and rubbed it on my head.

Anyway, moving on. Per our tour guides, the area is now better developed, having a new path that is much easier to go through. There are portions of the walkways that are cemented, metal railings here and there, and a nice little bridge way. We arrived at the transient around 7am and Whang-od hadn't started tattooing yet. She would start at around 8am. They sell thorns at the transient which is used for the batok tattoo and it is individually required, which is good. So no more sharing thorns, and it also serves as a souvenir. It costs 100 each. While waiting to get a tattoo from Whang-od, you can get a tattoo from other artists and they will even come to your transient.

I chose a crab tattoo which symbolizes a "traveler". The artist ran the tattoo 3 times so yes, it is 3 times as painful too. But it did not prepare me for the pain Whang-od's tattoo would bring. She hits hard haha.

When Whang-od started around 8am, we took a peek at her. We also took pictures to see the vibe of the place. She would start with the previous day's "leftovers". So since it was Saturday, she prioritized those that were not finished on Friday. When we peeked at Whang-od, we also saw that there were white boards where the number of vans, names of the guides and how many pax were listed.

There were 24 cars on Friday, and 36 on Saturday. So let's say there are 10 pax in a car, that's a total of 360. At least 360 people want to get tattoos. So good luck to the "day trippers" because if you get to the village late, they will not be able to accommodate you.

It was around lunchtime when we got in line for Whang-od and the tattoo was quick. She only makes 3 dots design but with the number of people in line, you can see and feel that she is tired.

When it was my turn, I chose the 3 dots to be placed on the side of my wrist. For me, the machine tattoo hurts more than the "batok". But compared to the crab tattoo pain, Whang-od's whip hurts more. We all noticed that even though the thorn is still stuck in your flesh, she will hit you again. That's what hurts, but the whole tattoo session only took 2 minutes.

Whang-od's 3 dots only costs 150. 500 on the crab. The tour fee is 3,300 including the van and transient, as well as food, yes, food as in breakfast lunch dinner on Saturday, and breakfast on Sunday. I just bought a T-shirt for 350. I would have liked to buy coffee (delicious promise), and keychains or magnets but I don't have any cash left (no data signal so no gcash).

⁉️ After a tattoo from Whang-od, you can do whatever you want. So we went to the rice fields or terraces, walked around the village, and took pictures.

We drank on Saturday night, and then after Sunday's breakfast, we left Buscalan. There is a little side trip to Benguet and Baguio. The term "core memory" is trending and this is one of my entries. Life in Buscalan is very simple. It's also good that sometimes you are disconnected from the internet and social media and away from your daily routines because while it may be tiring for the body, it is very fulfilling for the soul.

[arkipelagic]

Growing up in Tuguegarao, Jake would see the tattooed elders near his school and would often hear stories about Buscalan. It was not an easy trek to make, and at the time it was mostly foreigners who happened upon the village. Jake would spend three years completing his portrait series of the women elders of Kalinga. His iconic black-and white image of Whang-Od, which has been exhibited all over the world, can be found in various permutations all over Buscalan.

Whang-Od’s face is also plastered on all kinds of merch from t-shirts to coffee packaging, and that’s just in Buscalan. I don’t know if it’s because of her guilelessness and genuine desire to share her culture, but she has been at the center of several incidents that have been called out as exploitative, with a few requiring the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples to step in as the gatekeepers of indigenous intellectual property rights.

At a webinar that discussed these issues, social anthropologist Dr. Analyn Salvador-Amores noted that what was once a place-based ritual has been transformed into a commercialized practice. “Culture is an increasingly prized commodity, aggressively appropriated by other entities,” she said. “Instead of asking who owns culture, we should ask how we can promote respectful treatment of native culture and indigenous forms of self-expression within mass societies.”

[69yard]

Kajol-Indian Actress

Kajol, whose full name is Kajol Mukherjee Devgan, is an Indian actress who primarily works in Hindi cinema. She was born on August 5, 1974, in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Kajol comes from a family with a strong film background. Her mother, Tanuja, is an actress, and her late father, Shomu Mukherjee, was a film director and producer. Kajol made her acting debut in 1992 with the film “Bekhudi” but…