Kalinga - Part II - Last Tattoo Artist

The mountain village of Buscalan in the province of Kalinga held moving and meaningful surprises for my honey and me. 

A good friend had invited us to join a group of photographers on their trip and we had enthusiastically agreed without really knowing much about their mission. So it was to be an adventure without expectations; the best kind, in my book. And we were not disappointed.

Yesterday, in Part I of this series, I showed the majestic rice terraces we passed on our journey through the mountains.

Only when we reached Buscalan, historically a headhunters' village, did we learn we were to meet the last Kalinga mambabatok or tribal tattoo artist.

Let me introduce you to the poised and talented Whang Od (pronounced Fang-ud). She is in her 90s, was never married (lost the love of her life in a fatal accident when still in her 20s), and still works daily both in the rice fields and at her special art of hand-tap tattooing.

Whang Od herself is adorned with traditional tribal tattoo designs, as well as beautiful heirloom beads. (You can read more about Kalinga beads here.) I suspect some of these beads she would have received in barter for her craft.

Lars Krutak, the tattoo anthropologist of Discovery Channel's Tattoo Hunter series fame, describes her craft thus:

Whang Od keeps her tattooing tools under the floor boards of her stilted hut. Her hand-tapping kit is comprised of a coconut bowl to mix a pigment of soot and water, an orange thorn needle (siit) attached to the end of a small bamboo stick, and another short stick used to tap the thorn into the skin. 

I've read that for many, once they get one tattoo, they can't stop themselves getting more. Vixienne came back to Buscalan for her second tattoo. She is grimacing from the pain here, but not long after she was all smiles.

 

Jeremiah is the proud new owner of a traditional centipede tattoo by the national artist with a steady hand. (See Part VI so see his video of this.)

 

 Buscalan, Kalinga, 2012

In this last photo you see Whang Od standing in front of her humble home and also the tomb she has built for herself - the entrance is behind her legs. 

Many are concerned that when she dies, her art form will die with her. We were told - and I later read - that she has been training her young yet enthusiastic grand-niece, but we did not see her.

This is a short - less than two minute - video of the perilous road to Buscalan and Whang Od at her tap-tap-tap work. It was not made by anyone in our group.



My post today is linked to the blogging communities at Mosaic Monday and Macro Monday.

Drop in for Part III of this Kalinga series. Maybe I can surprise you, too!

H is for Horsepower

 Romania, 2011

It excites me that no matter how much machinery replaces the horse, the work it can do is still measured in horsepower.....even in this space age.  And although a riding horse often weighs half a ton, and a big drafter a full ton, either can be led about by a piece of string if he has been wisely trained. This to me is a constant source of wonder, and challenge.

     ~ Marguret Henry, American author (1902-1997)

 

A new morning... a new hard day for beasts of burden. For both man and his horse. And so it has been since the New Stone Age, roughly 10,000 years ago, when man transformed from forager to farmer.

[all photos can be enlarged with a click]

Then came the Industrial Revolution with its machinery. Since these new inventions often replaced the work of horses, it was considered useful to compare the output of machines with the power of draft horses.

Did you know that one horsepower equals 33,000 foot-pounds per minute? So it was determined by James Watt of the unit of power fame.

The story goes that Watt was working with ponies lifting coal at a coal mine, and he wanted a way to talk about the power available from one of these animals. He found that, on average, a mine pony could do 22,000 foot-pounds of work in a minute. He then increased that number by 50 percent and pegged the measurement of horsepower at 33,000 foot-pounds of work in one minute. It is that arbitrary unit of measure that has made its way down through the centuries and now appears on your car, your lawn mower, your chain saw and even in some cases your vacuum cleaner. [source: How Stuff Works]

To learn what other units horsepower are converted to, read here.

The letter of the week is H and this is my link for ABC Wednesday.

[SkyWatch] Peles Castle II

This is my second post on the magnificent Peles Castle in Sinaia. The beautiful blue sky made the perfect backdrop for this outstanding site and so I link this post to SkyWatch Friday.

The statue in the first image is King Carol I, under whose reign the country gained its independence. He commissioned the building of this summer palace. He was Romania's longest serving monarch, and he died and was buried there in 1914.

 Sinaia, Romania, 2011

 [click on images to see wonderful details of construction]

The wife of King Carol, Queen Elisabeth, was quite a personality herself. She wrote this in her journal while the castle was being built:

Italians were masons, Romanians were building terraces, the Gypsies were coolies. Albanians and Greeks worked in stone, Germans and Hungarians were carpenters. Turks were burning brick. Engineers were Polish and the stone carvers were Czech. The Frenchmen were drawing, the Englishmen were measuring, and so was then when you could see hundreds of national costumes and fourteen languages in which they spoke, sang, cursed and quarreled in all dialects and tones, a joyful mix of men, horses, cart oxen and domestic buffaloes.

And we have the impression globalization is a recent phenomena? Migration is as old as these hills and will never stop.

I'll be sharing more photos of the interior tomorrow.

[MyWorld] Schönbrunn Palace

Some people can escape the hot city life in summer to a small cabin by the lake (just saying). Other people go to a summer residence on a massive acreage. Like the 1400-room Schönbrunn Palace in Austria. But you'd have to be royalty.

 

 Vienna, 2011

 

Between the palace and Neptune Fountain are 32 statues of deities and virtues. And behind the fountain, still farther up on the hill, is a rather useless structure, in my opinion, called Gloriette, designed and built to glorify Habsburg power. Today it is a café serving the throngs of locals and tourists ambling the grounds.

Looking back down from the fountain you get a better picture of the size of this palace. Contrast it to the buildings in the city behind it.

The history of this imperial summer residence goes back to 1569. It holds various  styles of large gardens, an arboretum and a forest that was used as a hunting ground.  But the only animals I saw wouldn't be of much interest to hunters. Oh, and there is a children's zoo that I did not enter.

Call me crazy, but given a choice (and I've been told I do have a few drops of blue blood in my veins), I'd take the cabin. The trappings associated with this life are much too restrictive for my tastes.

And this was part of my world this week, so I am linked with MyWorld Tuesday where many others share a peek into their corner of the world.

C is for Church

One of the most distinctive experiences I’ve enjoyed in my travels is a private dinner on the front steps of a church. And not just any church, but the gorgeous Paoay Church in Ilocos Norte, the northernmost province in the Philippines.

Ilocos Norte, 2010

Known also as San Agustín of Paoay, it is one of four churches built by the Spanish in the late 16th century that was placed on the Unesco World Heritage list in 1993 for its unusual style of architecture. A fusion of Oriental, Gothic and Baroque influences created unique structures characterized by a separate bell-tower and strong buttresses able to withstand repeated earthquakes.

As described on the UNESCO site:

The Church of San Agustín at Paoay is the most outstanding example in the Philippines of 'Earthquake Baroque'. Fourteen buttresses are ranged along the lines of a giant volute supporting a smaller one and surmounted by pyramidal finials. A pair of buttresses at the midpoint of each nave wall have stairways for access to the roof. The lower part of the apse and most of the walls are constructed of coral stone blocks, the upper levels being finished in brick, but this order is reversed on the facade. The massive coral stone bell tower, which was added half a century after the church was completed, stands at some distance from the church, again as a protection against damage during earthquakes.

 

Construction of the church started in 1704 and was completed in 1894 by the Augustinian friars. The bell tower next to the church dates to 1793 and served as an observation point of the Katipuneros during the Philippine Revolution in 1896 and later by the guerrillas during the Japanese occupation.

It’s no wonder Paoay Church was also declared a national treasure.

As you can see from the photos, we arrived at the church after the sun was down, and while our party explored the grounds, the lights were turned on and the tables were set up for us. It was just a few days after Christmas, so the tree was still standing.

This post is linked with ABC Wednesday where the letter of the week is C. Go check out how other interesting C posts.

H is for Humayun

Preface June 11, 2012: This post is now linked to the community at Taphophile Tragics. If you have a fascination for tombs, graves, burial gounds and the histories of the humans who were "put to rest" in them, check out this meme.

:::

I introduced Humayun's tomb two days ago, but there is more to show and tell, and since the letter for Alphabe-Thursday this week is H, it felt fitting to continue.

Humayun was the second emperor of the Mughal era in India that began in the early sixteenth century. He was the favorite son of Babur, the first monarch, who could trace his ancestry directly to Tamerlane and Genghis Khan, two great Asian conquerors. Humayun ruled for 26 years and left an empire of nearly one million square kilometers.

Quoting from wiki - notes in brackets mine:

He is best remembered today for his great tomb, built by his widow after his death between 1562 and 1571. The ultimate model for Humayun's tomb is the Gur-e Amir in Samarkand (Tamerlane's tomb in Uzbekistan), and it is best-known as a precursor to the Taj Mahal in style. However, in its striking composition of dome and iwan (vaulted hall), and its imaginative use of local materials (including the red sandstone), it is one of the finest Mughal monuments in India in its own right.

Here are a few more of my images of this splendid piece of architecture and cultural heritage site. Photos enlarge when clicked. 

 

 

 

 

 

 Delhi, 2010

Humayun's tomb was listed a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993.

Light on the Hand of a Saint

When strolling around in Saint Peter's Basilica, it is hard for me not to get overwhelmed by all the art. There are of course the paintings, the sculptures, the carvings, but also the building itself, the walls, the floors, the ceilings; wherever I turn my eyes, there I see beauty created by the hands of men for the glory of their God. 

My own favorite is Michelangelo's Pieta; however I saw it personal and up close when it was in Florence in the mid-80s, and now this masterpiece is barricaded and secured behind glass. Just not the same.

On a more recent visit I was stunned by this sight of the Throne of Saint Peter by Bernini (1666) at the west end of the basilica. In this dark photo, the four church fathers are barely visible at the bottom, while the bright sunlight coming in from the window so vividly illuminates the pointing finger of Saint Elijah:

 Vatican, Italy, 2007

Elijah of Israel is many things to many people. He was a prophet of the 9th century BC, and he appears in the Hebrew Bible, Talmud, Mishnah, New Testament and the Qur'an, as well as in numerous other faiths. He even shows up in folkloric traditions as "Elijah the Thunderer" - responsible for summer storms, hail, rain and thunder. Catholics and Lutherans commemorate him as a saint with a feast day on July 20.

But lest you fear I will leave you with only the hand, here is a photo of the imposing statue of Saint Elijah by Agostino Cornacchini, 1727.

This entry is posted for the theme LIGHT for Brian & team's Theme Thursday. The link will take you to other links of creative interpretations of the theme.

Click on a photo to enlarge it.

Tsinoy

Diorama at Bahay Tsinoy, Manila, 2009

For many hundreds of years, people of Chinese origin have played an important role in the Philippines. The national hero, Jose Rizal, had both Filipino and Chinese blood running in his veins. Several of today's Filipino mega-moguls found on Fortune's 500 list, as well as many more political and financial leaders, are wholly or partly of Chinese ancestry.

Nonetheless, the history of Chinese Filipinos - known as Tsinoys or Chinoys - is fraught with drama and difficulties. Up to this day, the relationship between Pinoys and Tsinoys, although peaceful, is complex and delicate.

If you live in the Manila area, or come here for a visit, I highly recommend taking a few hours to see the museum Bahay Tsinoy (The House of Tsinoy) to get a better glimpse of the cultural and historical legacy of the ethnic Chinese in Philippine life. The dioramas are fun and the displays interesting.