During the early months of 2024, I was in search of a travel destination in the Philippines where I could learn more about some of the country's deepest cultures and experience them in person.
A friend of mine who had recently visited the Philippines showed me his new tattoo, a three-dot tattoo. It's a famous symbol in the Philippines that almost everybody knows, recognizing whose signature tattoo it is.
That gave me the motivation to embark on a long journey to Buscalan where I could find the tattoo artist, Apo Whang-Od.
Buscalan Tattoo Village is an isolated village located in Kalinga, Mountain Province, in the northern part of the Philippines.
Reaching this village requires a 10 to 12-hour drive from Manila, crossing multiple cities and provinces nestled in the mountainous region of the Philippines.
This small village is nestled on top of a mountain and can only be reached by foot.
While being isolated from the major cities, this village is self-sustaining by cultivating its own food. They built their village surrounded by multiple rice and crop terraces and keep livestock animals in their backyards as one of their main sources of food.
If you've reached this part of the blog, you might be wondering how this place became famous for tattoos.
First, let me tell you some information about the traditional tattooing in Buscalan Tatto Village.
Indigenous tattoos in the Philippines, known by various names like Batok, batek, patik, batik, or buri, were widespread among ethnic groups before colonial times.
Practiced on both genders, tattooing utilized traditional tools like hafted mallets. These tattoos symbolized tribal identity, kinship, bravery, beauty, and social status, varying from partial to full-body coverage.
Source: Vogue Magazine
Traditional tattooing in the Philippines has existed since before the Spanish colonial era. However, it was the discovery of Apo Whang-Od that started to bring popularity to this village among the masses.
In 2007, Dr. Lars Krutak spent two weeks in Buscalan filming the Philippine segment of his Discovery Channel series Tattoo Hunter. During his time there, he met Whang-Od, who was almost 90 years old at the time and still actively working in the rice fields every day.
After that, Whang-Od was dubbed the 'Oldest Mambabatok' (Oldest Traditional Tattoo Artist) of the Philippines. And that's how the popularity of this village started to grow.
Contrary to the drone photos I showed you earlier, exploring the village on foot reveals an even more surprising perspective. As I wandered through the village, I experienced a mix of feelings—being in an isolated village nestled atop a mountain, yet witnessing an environment that felt like an informal settlement.
Without a doubt, this is mainly due to the popularity of Whang-Od. People from other cities and provinces of the Philippines, and even foreigners, flock to this place just to get traditional tattoos. As a result, locals have built houses as hotels to accommodate visitors.
Unfortunately, this influx has led to the transformation of the once-traditional village, originally constructed with stones, wood, and dried leaves, into a more cemented environment.
It is undeniable that the locals of the Tattoo Village can earn more from traditional tattoos and tourism than from farming and selling fresh produce in the market.
And this business will lead to more structural developments in their village in the future.
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