Diwa
Madja-as, Panay
When the Goddess came to Posang Oda in a dream, requesting a favor to draw upon the guintandaan sang Dalikamata, she could not say no.
“There were three green ones, opening on a woman’s chest. One looks to the dead. One of the living. One of the gods.”
“Manang, the guintandaan cannot come to you. The government hunts her and is in hiding.” The elders tell her. “Besides, you can no longer make a ten-day round-trip journey.”
Pweh! Posang spits out the betel nuts she’d been chewing.
“This dream is a plea from the Dalikamata herself. My apo will go,” the oldest living tattoo artist from the province of Kalinga in Northern Luzon.
The elders did not argue.
When Kuya Gils told me Calendula Oda would visit our village to give me a special tattoo designed by Dalikamata, I was shocked and honored. Her one-hundred-and-three-year-old great-grandmother is renowned for her artistry as the original mambabatok. She is a tattoo artist skilled at creating tattoos through hand-tapping with a small hammer against a sharp bamboo “needle.” The ink is made from soot or ashes and water, or extracts from plants like the bush grape or a three-leafed wild vine.
“How does she know?” I had asked Kuya when he called me to the longhouse.
“The spirits summoned Posang to tattoo you. But she is too old to travel, and it is too dangerous to travel to the north with the soldiers looking for you. Calendula has been training under Posang for almost ten years and has been helping tattoo others who visit.
“Ate, it is time for you to become a batok. Do you feel ready?”
“I’ve never felt more ready. It truly is an honor. I can’t wait to see this special design she has for me. I know I am supposed to pay her with a sack of rice or a chicken, but I cannot imagine she’ll want to carry this on her way back. Can I arrange for Tio Pino to bring her cash, and for her grandmother also?”
“She will want no payment. The same as with me. I had gone to Posang during a summer break from school when she gave me my batok. She knew I was going to be Datu Agila and blessed by Kaptan. She resisted any payment I offered.”
I contemplated the large, bright-colored eagle tattoo across Kuya Gils’ torso. He proudly displays it shirtless. It is his mark as the leader of the Buruanga.
I had been told about the tattoos tribal members receive. But for those marked by the gods themselves, Posang Oda does them. Their designs are unique and can never be placed on anything other than the guintandaan. This came in a dream to Posang. This must be a sign.
That morning, the babaylan began the preparations. We fasted together on boiled kamote and ginger broth—no meat, no rice, no salt. We cleansed the body, emptied the vessel, and allowed the spirit room to enter.
She sent young girls to gather malunggay leaves, indigofera, and the soft green of macaranga bark, crushed with soot from burned jackfruit wood and lime to create the green-black pigment. The mix fermented in clay jars, its color deepening as the sun moved overhead.
“It must not just be green,” the babaylan said. “It must be alive.”
That night, beneath a moon wrapped in mist, we went to the ritual grounds near the old balete tree. The villagers gathered, whispering prayers to our ancestors as they circled the clearing. I was seated on a mat of woven pandan, bare-chested, hair unbraided and loose like the river.
Calendula was dressed in her Kalinga tribal costume. She is a young woman in her forties with a kind face and gentle hands. Her hair was braided, however, and twisted above her head. She sat before me, dipping a thin citrus thorn into the ink, her hand impossibly steady. She chanted softly—not to me, but to the eyes.
“Dalikamata, a thousand eyes, we ask three.
One to protect the blood.
One to see the truth.
One to light the path in darkness.
Watch her, see her, mark her.”
The first tap landed below my collarbone, just to the left of center.
Pain bloomed.
It wasn’t sharp like a needle. It was deeper—like the ache of an old wound waking up. I gritted my teeth, breathing slow and controlled.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Rhythm like rain.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Like footsteps returning to me across centuries.
But then—something changed. My chest began to pulse—not with pain, but warmth. The skin didn’t burn anymore; it glowed. I felt the breath of the earth rise through my spine. I heard Mama's song in the rustling leaves. I felt Papa's hands on my back.
I wasn’t alone.
When the third eye was finished, she dipped a tiny twig in ink and marked a mole beside each pupil—beauty marks and seals. She whispered that these were “locks,” so the eyes would not open unless truly needed.
"This is the mark of the goddess, as you are marked.”
When it was over, the babaylan wiped my skin with guava leaves soaked in turmeric and lemongrass water. The villagers sang. Calendula bowed, then packed her kit without a word. She would leave before sunrise, like a dream that never belonged to us.
I touched the center eye with trembling fingers. It was swollen and tender, and the skin raised around it like a whisper, but I felt no pain.
Only the quiet hum of something ancient, something awake—watching through me, waiting.
I felt myself becoming.
