MUNDURUCU
The Philippines is an island country in Southeast Asia whose peoples developed many traditions of tattooing and adornment. Early Spanish visitors called some Visayan people Pintados because their bodies were so extensively marked.
Northern Luzon's communities had their own designs. Some men's tattoos recognised historical achievements in warfare; women's markings followed different traditions linked with beauty or maturity. Eligibility and meaning varied between groups.
Hand-tapped tattooing uses a pointed tool struck to place pigment beneath the skin. Repeated marks become bold patterns across arms, legs or larger areas. The tattooist needs more than a steady hand: knowing which design to give a person is part of the skill.
Weaving, beads and ornaments add other ways to dress the body. The portraits bring together different island and highland communities, while practitioners continue to pass on and renew cultural knowledge today.