Tapping Ink, Tattooing Identities: Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Kalinga Society, Northern Luzon, Philippines, Analyn

BATEK, BATOK, AND WHATOK are various local words that denote a traditional tattooing practice among the peoples in the Cordillera Region, particularly in the province of Kalinga. Their bodies are inked with figurative designs of snake, centipede, frog, rice grain, and fern plant, among others, and interspersed with geometric motifs and patterns. These traditional tattoos speak strongly about the culture and landscape of the region: signifying rites of passage, or indicating their religious and political status, and sometimes, simply serving as physical adornment. Various meanings and significance of their tattoos are created and produced as the tattooed men and women of Kalinga articulate their own definition and meanings. Such is the foremost concern of the book, Tapping Ink, Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Kalinga Society, Northern Luzon, Philippines by Analyn V. Salvador-Amores. The constructed meanings attached to their tattoos are explored as Salvador-Amores grounds these meanings within the theoretical contexts of tradition and modernity.