By Gretchen Filart Dublin
IN these times when the lure of smartphones is stronger than storms of mass destruction, it’s so easy to fall prey to perpetually checking yours, even if there is nothing in there to check. We are forever connected even if we are not.
On the wee hours of May, I found myself doing the unimaginable for a person of my generation: I disconnected from the world.
Along with a handful of strangers and a backpack containing only water, clothes and a camera, I treaded the Cordillera mountains surrounding the contiguous villages of Tinglayan in Kalinga some 450 hundred kilometers away from home. It was first and foremost a pursuit of Buscalan’s Whang Od Oggay, the oldest surviving traditional tattoo artist, or mambabatok, in the Butbut tribe.
The road to Buscalan, a village with zero cell-phone signal and many mountains away from civilization, as we now know, is a journey to what seems like the deep, unearthed navel of the earth. Prior to a one-hour trek from Tinglayan to the village’s seat atop a mountain, one is required to endure a 14-hour, butt-numbing drive past sharp curves and narrow roads in Nueva Vizcaya, Ifugao, Mountain Province and, finally, Kalinga.
While much of the singular trail leading to the village has been cemented—an effort to ensure the safety and convenience of its continuously growing visitors since Whang Od’s art came to light—it is still not an easy one for the unfit. Steep, strait-like and mostly without shade, the path left us braised under the noon sun, drenched in sweat and often out of breath. During the arid trek, the endless expanse of verdant rice terraces and mountains surrounding us during the two-minute rest stops seemed to be the only consolation.
The ‘batok’ tradition and meeting Whang Od
Traditions are very much alive on this side of the earth. Draping walls of Charlie Pan-oy’s home, a renowned Butbut guide, are Bob Marley shirts visitors left behind, as decorative as they are an inspiration. They depict the Butbut lifestyle: one that subscribes to simple joys found on happiness and serenity. “Peace and love,” a writing on a wall reads.
Along with these shirts hung bones of cattle, monkeys and goats to ward off evil spirits. Centuries ago, there have been human skulls too, when Kalinga headhunters engaged in tribal wars to assume dominion and protect their respective villages.
As modern times reshape Buscalan’s history, tribal wars became a thing of the past and what remains of them are stories, photographs and the batok, or traditional tattoos, adorning the skin of warriors, including Fa’wad Accad, Kalinga’s only remaining warrior to date. Many of the locals found a livelihood in guiding outsiders like me into experiencing Buscalan’s native culture.
For the elders in Buscalan, Whang Od included, batok signified the power of tradition, above anything else. In Kalinga culture, batok is deemed aesthetically pleasing and the women wore theirs with pride, much as the men wore them with honor, symbolic of their engagement in war. The designs, which are indigenous to the community, are tapped onto the skin using soot and a sharpened pomelo thorn attached to a bamboo stick.
Dating back to thousands of years, this tradition is passed on only by lineage. Today visitors can experience it by getting a batok by Whang Od herself—mood and health permitting—her grand niece, Grace, or Elyang, another blood relative. For visitors like us, experiencing this unique tradition is among the highlights of the trip.
But, of course, there is meeting Whang Od herself
Featured in the prestigious Tattoo: Ritual, Identity, Obsession, Art exhibit in Royal Ontario Museum in Canada in April, Whang Od—or Apo, as she is fondly called—is considered by many the “master of traditional tattooing” and a living treasure.
At 98 years old, she is an image of grace, fortitude and the unbreakable resilience that lives among mountain people. She walks her way down to Tabuk to attend gatherings and relentlessly draws and taps bodies for hours without a whimper, just as she did on the day we visited. Glassy-eyed and brisk, seeing her in her best element is magical and a privilege that’s worth keeping for life.
Life after ‘batok’
In the morning, we were awakened by the soft rustling of broomsticks and tiny feet making their way from one wooden home to another. Village children, while cognizant of candies and cable TV (many have it in their homes but reserve it only for the news), are more interested in child’s play or a game of basketball in the village’s makeshift court. Here, sweeping sunsets amid lush rice terraces and the contiguous mountains of Patukan, Mating-oy Dinayao, and Mantingoy—collectively called “Sleeping Beauty” by villagers—can be enjoyed with a hot cup of Buscalan’s famous robusta coffee. Tranquil and unspoiled, it is a spot that can make one feel small in a world that’s astoundingly big and awe-inspiring.
On our way back to the jump-off point in Tinglayan where our van awaits, we passed by cascades where children played and took refuge from the sweltering heat, bare naked and carefree. Such image best describes the life in Buscalan—untouched by trivial pursuits, stripped of all but the bare necessities. As our tour guide explains, “The life we live in the city is the illusion; the one up in Buscalan is the reality.”
Some ask me to describe my journey to the village. It’s not easy to pin a word on it without sounding overly cheesy. So I will simply say this: The journey to Buscalan is a return to a life that is pure and primordial. Small and disconnected from the materialistic life we’ve been accustomed to, it forces one to readapt to the way the world was before modern technology and schedules took lives of their own.
It’s a world that’s bigger, freer and less complicated. It’s a world where one finds her heart more open to light: the sun, smiles and tiny feet, warm conversations, the whispers of leaves and grass in the wind; a life that’s paradoxically disconnected, but more connected to the heart of the world.