CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS

From the originality of the designs of the tattoos, we can say that our ancestors were very resourceful, creative, and brave. The patterns and materials they used to make the tattoos came from what they were able to see and had on hand on a daily basis. We must also be proud of our ancestors because of their ingenuity. They were able to come up with their own art forms and so long ago. They preserved our culture and protected it from being touched by modernization. Therefore, Igorots should not be thought of as primitive for even if we live in the mountains, we devised a way to adorn ourselves with what nature has to offer.

Let us not forget the meaning and value of the fatek. When we take a look at the tattoos we see today and compare them to those of our elders, we can see big differences. We therefore can say that as time has passed, the value and the meaning of the fatek has lessened or changed. We can see this with teens who are just getting tattoos with little or no value at all. The technical aspect of tattooing continues today, but it lacks the artistic patterns of our ancestors which made the fatek a unique cultural tradition. The tattoos we usually see at present are merely curved lines or pictures of modern images, lika a heart or an angel. Some even use tattoos to mark their identities as a members of fraternities.

As a result our focus should be on preserving the fatek. First of all, not all of our elder women have them. When you ask some of the elders without fatek why they don't have them, they inevitably turn the question back unto you. They will claim that the tattooing would have been very painful and that they were afraid they wouldn't have been able to endure it. Secondly, no one nowadays, has really dared to learn how to carve these tattoos or those who did learn have had no customers to tattoo in order to keep the fatek tradition alive. Lastly, the few women who possess this trademark of bravery are becoming fewer and fewer as more and more of them age and die. Perhaps, we could treasure the fatek through documentation like taking pictures, through pro-indigenous website like this, and also by simple  appreciation when we meet them along the way.