A Message About COVID19

Hand-tap tattooing has been practiced in the Philippines for thousands of years.

Mabuhay!

"Cultural tattooing is a ritual. There are chants, prayers and offerings to gods/ancestors to whom these tattoos are dedicated. Blessings, and sometimes curses are invoked in bestowing these designs, as well as being marks of prestige, heritage, and history. Modern western tattooing is the result of taking indigenous practices and stripping them of their spiritual, and cultural qualities leaving only the 'art' upon the skin. The recipient is left to make their own meaning for the designs rather than receive sacred ritual marks that are recognized by generations upon generations of ancestors. Let us work to decolonize tattooing and restore its honor."

-Lane Wilcken 

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A Brief History of prePhilippine Hand-tapped Cultural Tattooing
video credit: Mikayla Delson // music by: A La Una formerly known as  Datu 
A ethnographic film by Kayla Sotomil, The Modern Mambabatok follows the story of Lane Wilcken as he travels the United States practicing ancestral l Filipino hand-tap tattooing. Through Wilcken’s personal and professional journeys as a tattoo practitioner, audiences gain insight into the history of ancient hand-tap tattooing of the Philippines its near extinction, and its recent revival and practice in the Filipino diaspora. The Modern Mambabatok chronicles this resurgence of hand-tap tattooing and how batok, hand-tap tattoos, are used to express Filipino and Filipino American identity today.

For updates and film screenings: www.kaylasotomil.com
Lane Wilcken is a scholar, cultural tattoo practitioner and advocate for the the critically endangered practice of "batok" or cultural tattoos of the Philippines. He also has studied other related indigenous traditions of the Philippines and greater Pacific with over three decades of research and experience. His mother is from the Philippines and his father is of English and Scandinavian descent.  

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Lane is the author of "Filipino Tattoos Ancient to Modern" -and- "The Forgotten Children of Maui." He is also a contributing writer to "Back from the Crocodile's Belly: Philippine Babaylan Studies and the Struggle for Indigenous Memory" and "Shamanic Transformations: True Stories of the Moment of Awakening," as well as several articles for various magazines and journals. 

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The first book, Filipino Tattoos: Ancient to Modern explains the history, spiritual importance, and mythology associated with the ancient tattooing in the Philippines. The often cryptic meanings of individual symbols, designs and placements are revealed. It also explores the cross cultural connections of the tattooing practices of the Polynesians and Micronesian peoples of the Pacific.
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Lane's second book, "The Forgotten Children of Maui: Filipino Myths, Tattoos and Rituals of a Demigod," focuses on the traditions of the demigod commonly known as LuMauig (i.e. Maui) in the Philippines now fragmented by nearly 500 years of colonialism. Although not readily recognized, these once important traditions still form a subtle undercurrent to many aspects of Filipino culture

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