Tuareg Madonna

Niger. Sahel. Tuareg nomad woman sitting under her tent.

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Niger. Sahel. Femme Touarègue assise sous sa tente.

Motherhood under a Leather Tent

Niger. Sahel. Tuareg nomad mother and baby boy sitting on the sand of their leather tent.

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How the Tuareg Deal with a Recalcitrant Baby Camel

Niger. Sahara Desert. A Kel Rela Tuareg girl is pulling a baby camel away from its mother for not allowing her family to draw out some of the milk for themselves. The girl would then tie the animal to a stake near her tent.

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Backpacking in the Sahel--or Carrying Freedom on a Stick

Niger near Tahoua. Sahel. Fulani nomad walking ahead of his herd of zebus, which follow him like dogs .He carries all his possessions on a stick. They include a straw mat to rest on, a piece of cloth to lie under at night, a bag of millet grain to mix with water for a quick meal, a calabash to prepare the millet and eat in, an ax to cut wood for a fire, a bow to hunt, arrows in a leather  sheath, a herder's stick, rope shackles for some of his animals. 

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Nature Breeds Natural Grace

Niger. Sahel. Wodaabe girls waiting for their turn at the well

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A Cup of Water from a Daughter

Niger. Sahel.Using a small gourd, a Wodaabe nomad girl scooped water from a rain pond to give her mother to drink. The muddy water has been fouled by many herds of zebus, goats, and camels.

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How to Get your Back Washed without Wetting your Skirt

Niger. Sahel. Wodaabe nomad girls at well. They are taking a quick bath after watering their family's goats and filling their goat skins to bring back home, hanging them under the bellies of their donkeys.

Uncommon Pets: From Around the World

Rare are the people, anywhere in the world, who do not own pets. We may hunt or raise animals for food or labor, but we also need them for love. And you can't get more love sometimes than from a pet. 

For all the reasons we know, dogs and cats have long been the favorite of people everywhere. I love both, but have a sweeter spot for dogs, even though I have a few stories to tell about the dangerous dogs I have faced in my travels.

So I’ll concentrate today on uncommon pets. Farmers' kids sometimes adopt goats or chickens as pets. Like other animals, when young they are more adorable than the most expensive teddy bears. And how many societies can afford or even find teddy bears to buy? Those baby animals may lose their fluffiness as they grow up, but by then they are safe from the butcher's knife.

 

The same happens with the desert nomad kid who adopts a white baby camel or kid as his or her own personal toy and companion. 

Amazon forest Indians, who must hunt for food, have enough respect, and even regret, for the animals they must kill to feed their families, that that they adopt any progeny the dead animals may leave behind. 

Now family pets, those monkeys, sloths, opossums, birds, and others, will be fed and allowed to die of old age.

What You See May Not Be What You Think

While sitting one evening around the fire with a group of Tuareg men, Sahara nomads bound from Niger to Lybia with camels and sheep to sell there, a man walked into the edge of the circle of light. Tuareg men veil their faces, but in our intimacy some had lowered them somewhat. At the sight of the man, they immediately raised them back to their eyes.

Now the man felt confident to move forward. We saw that he was a stranger. Politely he exchanged greetings with us. Finally he said that his water bag was empty and that he had been thirsty for a very long time. A bowlful of water was poured, and he gulped it down after pronouncing the Moslem ritual praise to God.

“Since sunset,” he said. “I have been following sounds of pestles hitting mortars and of children crying, but every time I thought I was reaching an encampment, the sound stopped suddenly—only to start somewhere else.”

“Djinnen,” the men murmured, and the man nodded.

Though I do not believe in evil spirits, I was not in the least skeptical of the dangers our guest faced while he was lost. A Djinn could have got me killed too some weeks earlier.

At that time I was sharing the daily lives of a large Tuareg encampment of the noble Iullimiden tribe and the people of lower castes employed by them. One evening, I brought water in my collapsible canvas bucket to a thicket, away from Tuareg families, to bathe. I put the bucket down in the dark at the foot of a thorn tree, and as I did so, saw the vague shape of a man squat 15 paces away. He watched me intensely as I undressed and hung my clothes on a branch above my head, washed, and dried myself.

As I turned around to grab my clothes, a heavy branch hit my head, nearly knocking me out. There was no big branch that I could have brought down with my clothes, and the man had disappeared. He had obviously thrown the branch at me, though for what reason I could not fathom. I decided to tell Radwane, the Chief’s son, about that voyeur and his aggressive behavior.

“Let’s find him and beat him up,” Radwane said.

“Victor!” we suddenly heard from a terrified voice. “You gave me the fright of my life. I was passing through the scrub when I descried that tall unearthly silhouette (in the darkness the clothes above my head had added to my height) moving under a tree. Fear paralyzed me, and when I heard water running where there had never been any, I knew I was facing a djinn. At last, summoning my courage, I grabbed a thick branch and threw it at what had to be a djinn with all the strength I could muster.”

He concluded that to dare to dwell in dark thickets at night without absolute necessity I either had to be a super amahar (noble warrior) or be protected by powerful gris-gris.

“But do not laugh, Victor,” he scolded “Had I had a spear, you would be dead now.”

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