Naty Sugguiyao and The Tattooed Women of Kalinga

As promised in the last post "Kalinga Culture", here is a picture of Kalinga women, one in her birthday suit, with their vivid body tattoos.

Tattoos have been one of the permanent components of the costumes of the Kalinga people. These pictures are from a woman whom I have always admired since I was still in High School.

I have looked upon her as a model to emulate; a valedictorian of her class, she is "beauty and brains"and everything I have envisioned a perfect woman should be.

Back then, my young heart have often imagined her to become my future sister-in-law. lol.

But fate has other things in store for her. I am talking about Naty Sugguiyao from Lubo, Tanudan.

Naty Sugguiyao is a well traveled, highly educated Kalinga woman, and who, herself, dons her tattoo proudly to show her ancestry.

She was interviewed on National TV, been invited to present Kalinga Tattoos abroad, written about in the Philippine Daily Inquirer and is a Provincial Officer at National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP.)

If that is not enough, then you may want to buy a book on "Kalinga Tattoos" where she was one of the proponents and models simultaneously.

Naty is the lovely lady in the violet dress.