The ancestor spirit represents my deep appreciation to my ancestors, who I feel are always guiding me in life.
—King James Mangoba ()
As part of its 50th anniversary celebration, Hamilton Library¡¯s and the Center for Philippine Studies at the UH ²Ñ¨¡²Ô´Ç²¹ opened , an exhibition linking 1500s colonial maps with tattoos as living archives of Filipino cultural memory, on view through February 2026.
Opening events, held October 15–17, drew more than 100 participants for workshops, talks and live tattoo demonstrations. Attendees explored how Filipinos have used body art and the written word to resist erasure—from rare 16th-century maps and letters from the Philippine Revolution to underground newspapers from the Marcos era, all part of Hamilton¡¯s Philippine Collection.
Mapping identity through body and archive
Philippine Studies Librarian Elena Clariza opened the program with a presentation on early colonial maps, connecting “fragile maps on paper with living maps of the body—tattoos as archives of ancestral knowledge and cultural memory.”
Guest artists from California¡¯s Spiritual Journey Tattoo Shop and members of Tatak ng Apat na Alon (Mark of the Four Waves) demonstrated traditional hand poke and tapping tattoo techniques, sharing their nearly 30-year effort to revive Indigenous Filipino tattoo practices.
“In the beginning it was just for us to find our identity, to represent the culture in some way,” said Elle Festin, tattoo artist at Spiritual Journey and a Datu (chief) of the Mark of the Four Waves tribe. “It¡¯s important to get the tattoos to show the resistance and to revolt against the systematic colonial mentality.”
UH community connects to heritage
For King James Mangoba, a UH ²Ñ¨¡²Ô´Ç²¹ double major in communication & marketing and Hamilton Library social media content creator, the event was a personal and cultural milestone.
“The rice symbolizes my family¡¯s livelihood of rice farming back in the Philippines. The ancestor spirit represents my deep appreciation to my ancestors, who I feel are always guiding me in life,” he said. “This tattoo is a permanent reminder of where I came from and my appreciation to my ancestors who came before me.”
Doctoral candidate Matthew Melendez, from the , participated in the tattoo sessions. “Receiving knowledge from the Tatak ng Apat na Alon tribe through our cultural portal of batok (tattooing) has profoundly transformed me from within,” he said.
The event was co-sponsored by UH ²Ñ¨¡²Ô´Ç²¹¡¯s Center for Southeast Asian Studies and Center for Philippine Studies, and Spiritual Journey Tattoo Shop. To support programs like this at Hamilton Library, visit the .
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Mark of the Four Waves members visit the Philippine Studies section at Hamilton Library.