Filipino Shamanism, Myth, Traditional Tattoos & Cultural Connection | Lane Wilcken

Lane Wilcken is a scholar, cultural tattoo practitioner, known as a mambabatok, and an advocate for the critically endangered practice of "batok" which are the cultural tattoos of the Philippines.
He’s studied many of the indigenous traditions of the Philippines and greater Pacific, with nearly three decades of research and experience. He’s the author of "Filipino Tattoos Ancient to Modern" and "The Forgotten Children of Maui: Filipino Myths, Tattoos, and Rituals of a Demigod."
He’s also been 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.
In this conversation, we cover traditional cultural tattoo, animism, shamanism, mythology, origin stories, similarities between not just the Philippines, but many of the islands and cultures within and around the Pacific, cultural restoration, and several other threads that we stitch into the fabric of our dialogue.
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TIMESTAMPS:
[3:35] Lane open the conversation with a Filipino prayer
[6:25] How did Lane get started on this path?
[7:30] The Philippines are a product of an admixture of peoples for over a millennia
[8:15] Why did Lane feel so comfortable around Hawaiian culture?
[9:15] The similarities between pre-contact Philippines culture and Polynesia
[10:00] Lane’s rite of passage into tattooing
[18:20] Philippines: The Island of the Painted People
[19:00] Ancient tattoo artifacts discovered roughly 4,000 years ago
[19:45] The link between ancient tattooing and Chinese medicine / acupuncture points
[21:20] Sacred geometry in tattoos and the potential link with psychedelic trips
[21:56] Animistic relations and tattoo symbology
[23:00] Filipino plant medicine and acacia??
[25:30] Animism and the understanding that everything has a spirit
[26:00] Banyan trees and deification of the dead
[26:35] Filipino afterlife beliefs
{28:15] Filipino shamans (Babaylans) and ancestral rituals
[31:36] Lanes grandmother as a Filipino healer
[32:23] Lane discussing his “activation” of ancestral healing knowledge
[35:00] Self-initiation as a response to the lack of connection with our ancestral roots
[36:00] Was it predominantly the women who became the shamans?
[37:47] The matriarchal thread throughout traditional Filipino culture
[41:00] Women were considered spiritual portals into this world and the other
[41:23] The story of the Babaylans being fed to the crocodiles
[42:42] Headhunting traditions and eating part of the warrior as spiritual culture
[44:00] Is there a link between symbology and practicality when it comes to shamanic canoe travel?
[46:46] Cross-cultural pollination between seafaring Pacific cultures
[49:33] The great debate of whether the Philippines is linked to South East Asia or Pacific Island
[51:15] Mainland Asian culture vs Pacific culture
[53:00] Linguistic similarities between traditional cultures
[54:50] The sweet potato of the Philippines is of Native American origin
[56:15] Did Maui, the Demigod, bring sweet potato to both the Philippines and New Zealand?
[57:20] Laumuaig / Maui fishing up the islands
[59:00] Tattoos as mnemonic devices that commemorate ancient mythology
[1:00:36] For Filipinos, the Philippines is not our original homeland
[1:01:30] The link between ancestral arrivings by bamboo tube and the symbolic feminine
[1:05:10] Nurturing the soils of cultural restoration
[1:15:38] The tribe known as the Dreamweavers
[1:21:30] Cultural appropriation and rebuilding a visual vocabulary of entholinguistic groups of the Philippines
[1:23:00] From pottery and textiles to tattoos on the skin
[1:24:40] Receiving tattoo meanings through dreamtime realms
[1:27:12] Lane gives thanks to close up the conversational container

[@rhondarichoux4170]

Getting a traditional tattoo by Lane is on my bucket list. Being the story keeper of my family, I’m very in tune with my ancestors, who give me strength.

[@caiyuda]

I love that. Have you organized anything yet? It's been a while since you left this comment... 🙏

[@therealrayster]

This video came to me. I came from the Visayas region and have thought that my grandfather (mom's side) is a Babaylan, which makes sense witnessing my own interest in magic ever since I was young. I came from Bali a few days ago and the layers of the ancient past keeps coming full circle. whoa

[@caiyuda]

Amazing. The journey of ancestral reconnection has so many layers to it. Blessings on the ride!

[@AllenNoche]

Lane should connect with Whang-od, a 103 year old tattooist, who is also a rather semi-famous and certified Mambabatok from Kalinga, Philippines she is also featured in the cover of Vogue.

[@caiyuda]

From memory, I'm pretty sure Lane has! 🙏

[@jecebelfrost796]

Kalag means spirit .Filipino ancient culture inherit in Bisaya

[@YourFilipinaPaige]

Mabuhay:))

[@albertclaro9373]

try to research circumcision using patpat as similarity to all islands of the Philippines

[@somehandbark]

is there other kind of babaylan? why call it filipino babaylan?

[@caiyuda]

There are lots of different names/words for a medicine person/shaman/healer, depending on each ethnic group all throughout the Philippines. Babaylan is just one word, a colloquial term for Filipino healer, as far as I understand.

[@davidbrown7990]

Great video...
Jesus is The Way, The Truth, and The Life. No one can perfectly come to God, except through Him 🙏.

[@caiyuda]

Jesus is *your* way. It's definitely not the only way, nor truth. As the saying goes, there's a lot of paths up the mountain... 🙏