As part of their celebration for National Women's Month, the Museo Kordilyera at the University of the Philippines Baguio held an event called "INKheritage: Women, Tattoos, and Cultural Identity in the Cordillera". The highlight of the event was a talk by Ammin Acha-ur, a traditional tattoo artist (mambabatok) from Kalinga.
In her talk, Acha-ur explained the history and significance of tattoos in Kalinga, especially among the women. She pointed out the main reasons why Kalinga women got inked. These were as follows:
1. For fertility. They believed that getting a tattoo increases their chances of conceiving a child.
2. For healing. They believed that getting a tattoo helps in getting well from an illness or disease. Applying "batok" on the part of the body that is experiencing pain will make the pain and sickness go away.
3. For protection. They believed that getting inked can help in shielding them from harm. They have this belief that hurting or attacking a tattooed woman brings bad fortune to the attacker. Think of it as bad karma. This gives pause to anyone intending to harm a tattooed woman. If you harm a tattooed woman, bad things will happen to you, sooner or later.
4. For body decoration.
Acha-ur also briefly discussed the reasons why Kalinga men had their bodies inked. But these would be for another post.
