Photo credited to Journeying James
Original photo link and story here
I am a sucker of heritage and history stuff. Yeah kinda boring really but I don't know I have these eyes and ears for these (Wala ang drama lang!). We are losing so much of our cultural identity because of the technologies and foreign influence we encounter everyday. I am not against about these but we should at least not let our local identity fade away so when I read about Journeying James post about JourneyingJames as a Rice Farmer in Kalinga I instantly got interested about the story and the photo which eventually I posted on Facebook at first.
Tattoos once only associated with prisoners and ex - convicts. But now it is as common as seeing people of "third sex" in everywhere. My late dad has a tattoo in one of his shoulders - an image of a cross and some designs. Too bad never did I thought of asking why of all this image. Nelson, an officemate for years has a tattoo also in one of his shoulders - a butterfly. I asked him why butterfly, he said nothing he just liked the design. I asked him "You had an image permanently inked to your body with no reasons at all?" He just shrugged his shoulders. I also loved this world map tattoo of this British girl we met last year travelling to the Philippines to explore our beaches. Really pretty cool!
The story is very touching. These are the last batches of tattoed women perhaps because their grandchildren have to go with the modern times to prepare for their educational and professional career. That having a tattoe is not really cool (or is it?) anymore. He also featured Fang-od, the last remaining tattoo artist of Kalinga who was also featured by Lars Krutak of Discovery Channel for Tattoo Hunter. I was glad that James replied "i want this photo be painted for arts sake, sell it and used to help the tribe start business.". I hope this will be successful and help these people in Kalinga.
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