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106-Year-Old Indigenous Filipino Tattoo Artist Becomes Vogue’s Oldest Cover Model

By Sara Barnes on April 3, 2023

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The Vogue Philippines magazine has revealed the cover of its April 2023 beauty issue, and it's a record-breaking one. The front of the magazine features 106-year-old Indigenous Kalinga mambabatok (traditional tattooist) Apo Whang-Od, whose appearance makes her the oldest person to ever appear on any cover of Vogue.

Whang-Od (who also goes by Maria Oggay) is helping to keep the ancient Kalinga tradition of hand-tapped body art alive. She’s been tattooing since she was 16 years old, having started under the mentorship of her father. Her apprenticeship was a significant moment for women in her culture; previously, men were the only ones who could learn to mix the pine-soot ink and apply the by-hand designs.

For decades, Whang-Od performed tattoos just within her community. She traveled to villages that were both near and far, imprinting sacred symbols using a thorn from a pomelo tree, a foot-long bamboo stick, coal, and water. (The thorn and stick tap the ink deep into the skin, making the designs permanent.)

Things have changed for Whang-Od in the past 15 years. Her fame in the tattooing community grew beyond her remote village of Buscalan. Though it’s a major trek to get there—it’s a 12-hour drive from Manila and a 40-minute walk through rice terraces—people now come from around the world to get a tattoo from her.

According to Kalinga, the mambabatok tradition can only be passed down to blood relatives. Whang-Od never had any children of her own, so she trained her grand-niece, Grace Palicas, starting from when she was 10 years old. Now 26 years old, Palicas has a tattooing practice of her own along with her 23-year-old cousin Elyang Wigan. Together, they ensure that mambabatok will live on, just as Whang-Od has.