The Spaniards originally called our islands, " Las Islas de los Pintados", " The Islands of the Painted Ones." My goal is to restore a true understanding of this sacred practice of tattooing including the oral traditions that accompany them”
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Lane is an artisan of ancient technology, and art. He is widely recognized by the Filipino-American community as a "mambabatok," a cultural tattoo practitioner only using ancient hand-tapped tattoo techniques. He makes all his own tools, many of which are now extinct in the Philippines. Lane's practice is spiritual and includes meditation and prayer before composing batok (tattoo) arrangements according to the designs and symbols of a person's specific ethnic group and their personal experience. The actual application of the batok is done as ritual, with chants, food offerings and prayers as part of the process.
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Lane has been researching the indigenous past of the Philippines and the Pacific Islands for over three decades. His methodology incorporates oral tradition; written history, linguistics, personal experience and cross-cultural analysis with other Austronesian peoples of the Pacific to bring a fuller understanding of the origins and culture of the peoples of the Philippines. His interest in cultural tattooing was borne out of a desire to strengthen cultural pride among Filipinos and to reunite them and Pacific Islanders symbolically and spiritually with their estranged ancestors. Lane has given numerous presentations and lectures on tattooing, mythology and other cultural traditions at several universities and private forums.
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