Indonesia: How Our Stone-Age Ancestors Drank Water

In 1968, having spent four months crossing Indonesian Borneo from Pontianak on the west coast to Samarinda on the East coast on assignment for National Geographic, I traveled the next three months on a Venture magazine assignment photographing the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, Sumba, Sumbaya, Timor, and Irian Jaya.

In Irian Jaya, in the western part of New Guinea, I reached the stone age. Literally, as the Dani tribe there were still using axes and agricultural tools made of polished stones. There I watched a boy drink from a river as do animals. Our distant ancestors may have done it too.

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Indonesia: Amazing How Much You Can Pile On A Bicycle

The world’s streets offer some of the most amazing spectacles. And they are free. I shot this earnest ciclyst near Jakarta , Indonesia, in 1968. 

Indonesia: Broken By A Demanding Job

Having transported people all day through the traffic of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, this pedicab driver found a quiet spot to take a nap. Here’s a man who will never put on weight.

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Philippines: How To Carry Six Guitars And More

Guitar vendor in Manila, Philippines, is carrying his stock on his shoulders.

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Philippines: Two-Wheel Fun

Two-wheel taxi slicing the air of Philippines’Negros Island.

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Philippines: Fourteen On A Motorcycle

Up a steep road in the Philippines’ Negros Island, 13 boys are riding a motorcycle taxi’s side car to a soccer game. They were as flabbergasted at seeing a camera lens pointed at them as I was of their own circumstance.

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Benin: Running Around In A Fetish Dance

Yoruba women and girls irrupting into a joyous circular fetish dance in Benin’s Ita Djebou, near Sakete.

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Niger’s Wodaabe Nomads: From Yakey To Gerewol

In previous posts my photographs showed how the Wodaabe nomads of Niger’s Sahel prepare for, and perform in, the Yakey dance, which doubles as a male beauty contest among the members of a clan. Again, in this new image, an important part of the game is the display of white teeth and eyes.

The Yakey was only a way to warm up for a much more important and challenging festival. This one, the Gerewol, now pits clan against clan. And pity the less attractive or less spirited dancers for the mockery they will endure, including the threat to get saddled up like donkeys,

The elders, women and men, spare none of the dancers. And as they spur them into a more energetic act you can imagine their words, which are universal. “Come on, girls. What have our grandsons come to?  What a generation of weaklings!

The old men selected a few of the prettiest girls to judge the dancers. Unlike the granddaddies, they watch the young dancers respectfully. When asked for their choices at the end, they will each rise and walk towards a dancer while pointing at him.

The onlookers.

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Niger: Yakey dance, A Wodaabe Male Beauty Contest

In the last few days I posted photographs of Wodaabe men preparing for a Yakey dance, which doubles as a male beauty contest. Here is a section of a row of men making great efforts to show the whiteness of their eyes and teeth to a parallel row of young women watching them as they dance and sing without leaving the spots they are standing on. They are wearing sheep skins pants and swords. 

The third photograph shows a rear view of one of the men. 

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Niger: Wodaabe Male Beauty Contestants

Men of the nomadic Wodaabe tribe, also known as Bororo, are made up to participate in a Yakey dance, which doubles as a male beauty contest among members of a clan. Later, during the short rains, when pasture will be abundant enough for those people’cattle not to need to keep moving for a while, the clans will gather and compete in a Gerewol dance. 
     This will be a much more demanding beauty contest. This time it will oppose clans against clans, and the less-than-handsome will be ridiculed by the elders. The good-looking ones will hook up with potential wives.

     The Wodaabe canon of beauty demands light skin, thin nose and lips, high forehead, and mostly shining white teeth and eyeballs. This invites much make-up.

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