Brazil: Yanomami Women Are Among The World’s Kindest and Most Devoted Mothers

Having traveled the world and shared the daily lives and hardships of more than 30 tribal and indigenous people in three continents, I have marveled at the hassle-free relationship these people have with their children and adolescents. It starts, I think, with great love and tolerance, not just from parents, but also from everyone else. At the same time, these children are taught early where their places and responsibilities are in their societies. Mostly, perhaps, there are no overburdened single moms among them. No orphans. Spouses and parents die with minimum consequences.

In the case of Brazil’s Yanomami, for example, as many as 100 people may live under a single vast circular roof, each family around its own fire, but each one responsible for the others. And Yanomami mothers are among the most loving I have watched anywhere. After giving birth to a baby they’ll do almost anything to avoid another pregnancy for the next four years, even avoiding sex. During those four years they’ll take their small children anywhere with them, even when it means loading them on top of already very heavy full baskets.

The photographs that follow show the same young mother, probably no older than sixteen. She was so sweet that she quickly became my favorite. But all the Yanomami mothers I photographed behaved like her. To see some of them, write ‘Yanomami’ in this blog’s search box. You’ll find them on many pages.

Slashing through an overgrown abandoned field to pull some manioc still growing there.

The manioc.

Resting for a while 

Felling papayas in a plantain field.

Peeling manioc while keeping her baby girl busy with a piece of papaya.

Readying herself to lift the basket on the back of a small companion girl.

Carrying a bunch of plantain to her family fire.

Grating manioc inside a piece of bark. She will squeeze and dry the result to get flour.

Baking flat manioc bread on ceramic plate. Baby sleeps in hammock.

Fishing from river.

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Self-Evident Marquesan Woman

Exploring Ua Pou, one of the Marquesas Archipelago’s six inhabited islands, I stumbled upon this young woman as she was pounding popoi in her open kitchen. Popoi, a staple food of the Marquesas, is prepared mixing and cooking fresh and fermented breadfruit and pounding it.

     Having photographed her at work, I asked her to let me take a portrait of her. Not worrying for a minute about her untidy hair, dress, hands, and wrists, she let me shoot her in the raw, unafraid to show her real self—a woman happily interrupted during a messy activity.

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Enchantment Of The South Seas Islands

In !982, on a National Geographic Society assignment to produce a chapter, text and photographs, for a book titled Secret Corners of the World, I spent two months exploring the six inhabited islands of the Marquesas Archipelago in French Polynesia.  Walking along the stunning coast of Ua Huka Island, which I had to myself, I chanced upon these dancers, who were rehearsing for the French Bastille Day celebration. But then, such occasions are what makes travel off the tourist map so exciting.

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Mali: Gold-Adorned Red Fulani Woman

One of two red Fulani women I transported in my car over a few miles near Mali’s Bandiagara Cliffs. Each was carrying a big calabash of fresh milk, some of which they spilled on my rear seat. But they graciously posed for me at their destination. 

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Mali: Old Man Issued From The Shadow

In Djenné, Mali, this old man, with amazingly long legs, emerged from the shadow behind a wall to have a look at the equally curious photographer. 

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Indonesia: Rushing Home With The Groceries

In Indonesia’s Jakarta, the country’s capital in Java Island, a pedicab’s cargo leaves little room for its owner.

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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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Niger: A Wodaabe Man Checks The Whiteness Of His Teeth And Eyeballs Before Joining A Male Beauty Contest

Looking into a small mirror in his hand, a man of the Wodaabe tribe, also known as Bororo, is checking the whiteness of his teeth and eyes before joining a Yakey dance, which doubles as a male beauty contest among members of a clan. Later, during the rains, when pasture will be abundant enough for those nomads’ cattle to stop moving in search of grass 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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Niger: Wodaabe Man Preparing To Participate In A Male Beauty Contest

Looking into a small mirror, a man of the Wodaabe tribe, also known as Bororo, is painting his face to participate in a Yakey dance, which doubles as a male beauty contest among members of a clan. Later, during the rains, when pasture will be abundant enough for those nomads’ cattle to stop 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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Amazon: Angelical Face Of A Yanomami Girl

Little Yanomami girl of Brazil’s Amazon rain forest. Having lived in isolation in their Edenic forest over many centuries, the Yanomami have not benefited from outside influences. But they are as human and intelligent as of any of us. And they have an amazing sense of humor. Their children are the happiest I have seen anywhere in the world.

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Amazon: Yanomami Indians On A Hunting Expedition

Armed with bows and arrows much taller than them, those Yanomami of Brazil’s Amazon rain forest are headed on a hunting expedition. On their return they will share the meat of their preys with the whole community and only keep for themselves the least appetizing parts. They won’t work hard the next couple days. The Yanomami are so well organized that they do not need to work more than an average two and a half hours a day.

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Colombia: A Sting That Could Have Killed

This Noanama man is showing me around his Colombian Choco rain forest. My wife, Martha, was part of the journey, as were two of her Colombian teenager cousins, Diego and Juan Carlos. That journey would have been idyllic if at some point we had not been close to lose Martha. It was sudden and frightening.

     We were walking down barefoot the muddy ground that separated the Noanama’s big stilted hut from a canoe in which a Noanama man was waiting to pole us up the Docordo River to his family’s forest plantation when Martha cried in pain. Something had stung her lower leg. The pain was brief. But soon her skin inflated all over her body. Large blisters were quickly spreading like rain water or oil on metal, swallowing each other as they grew.  

     “I see black,” Martha suddenly complained. And having said that she started struggling desperately to breathe. It was scary and happening too fast to allow thinking. We thought we were seeing her die.

     Diego suggested we rush downriver to try to find a dispensary. But there was no time.  Somehow I thought Martha could find some relief lying down. The river was shallow and the banks too muddy. So I asked everyone to leave the canoe and laid Martha down in it. I had no idea how to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but thought nothing else would save her at this point and I had to try it. However, before I could even start she breathed better. She told me she was seeing again. And her blisters left little by little, the way they had come. It seemed miraculous. And perhaps it was. We never knew what had happened to her, but figure she suffered from an allergy, perhaps to a spider sting.

     Some years earlier, in Afghanistan, I had seen a young Frenchman nearly die from an allergy to flea stings. Armies of fleas were leaving cracks in a wall of the caravanserai where we slept to feast on our blood.

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Colombia: Noanama Canoe Parking

Pulling sugarcane with her left hand, a Noanama woman steps out of a canoe at the bottom of her family’s tambo, a large wall-less hut on stilts above the Docordo River in Colombia’s Choco rain forest. Floating on the water are canoes for every member of the family. Children get canoes fitting their own sizes as soon as they can walk—to play with them while learning to use them. In a road-less world, moving is over rivers.

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Colombia: Noanama Family, At Home In The Rain Forest

   Noanama Family sharing a quiet moment together in their tambo, a large wall-less hut    on stilts above the Docordo Rver in Colombia’s Choco rain forest

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Colombia: Noanama Hunter In Choco Rain Forest

Early morning, on a hunting expedition, a Noanama man is walking a narrow Choco rain forest path. His ancient rifle was homemade and he does not trust it. When spotting a monkey in a tree he keeps the rifle away from his face, lest it explodes in his eyes. 

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Colombia: Watching A Rain Forest River Flow

Lit by the warm light of a setting sun, a Noanama girl sitting at the edge of her family’s wall-less hut raised on stilts is dreamily watching the Docordo river flow below in Colombia’s Choco rain forest.

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Colombia: Green Is The Rain Forest's Color

Watching her feet as she walks though muddy terrain, this Little Noanama girl is carrying plantain from her family’s rain forest garden in Colombia’s Choco Department. The strap holding the plantain on her back comes from a strip of tree bark. The forest gives the Indians all they need to survive comfortably.

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Sahara: The Salt Caravan Must Never Stop

Between Bilma and Agades, in Niger’s Sahara, the wells are so far apart, and so much happens along the way of the Tuareg caravans, that they can never stop until men and camels must rest for the night. But as interminably as the caravans plow forward, they never reach the next well before the men are half dead of thirst and dangerously dehydrated.

     Many things delay them. Here they come upon scattered blades of grass on which they must release the camels,which will help spare the straw the camels carry and must feed on every morning.

     Next day, after spending hours gathering the widely scattered camels, the Tuareg discover that two of them are missing. They release the lot again and go hunting for the lost two, taking all day. By then the water goat skins are hanging nearly flat from their makeshift tripods--water of which the Tuareg never bring enough, preferring to load the camels with more salt.

     Farther along the way a camel breaks a leg and must be butchered. Or a sand storm keeps everyone lying under blankets for as long as three days (the storms abate at night).

     Another reason why the caravan must never stop is that, if it did for as little as a few minutes, the camels would gather together, rub sides, throw down the breakable salt cones, and leave the Tuareg poorer for it.

In 1965 I traveled for 22 days across the Tenere, one of the Sahara’s most dangerous regions, with a Tuareg salt caravan. At the salt pits of Bilma, an oasis in Niger, hundreds of Tuareg, among thousands of camels, were wrapping salt cones in straw mats and preparing for the long return journey to their camps in the AÏr Mountains.

     Not one group accepted my company. They all said that a European was not prepared for the agony of hunger, thirst, and fatigue they would live, and that they would rather not have to bury my bones in the desert’s sands.

     I was on my first National Geographic assignment, and there was no way I could say amen to this. Had I had money to offer the Tuareg, they would probably have removed their objections. But I did not. And I was only at the beginning of a four-month stay among the Tuareg.

     As I was untested by National Geographic, the editors had given me only enough money to fly from New York to Europe. From there, traveling overland, I had been struck by a knee infection that had nailed me for two weeks in a small Algerian oasis’ flyblown hospital. Still unable to walk at the end, I had had to resign myself to seek medical help in Brussels, my home town, where I lost another two weeks. I flew this time—both ways, as I feared to reach the caravans’ departures too late.  

     Fortunately, by the time I reached Bilma I had already spent two weeks traveling on camel back with a Tuareg man to photograph Tuareg tribes around the Sahara’s  Ahaggar Mountains. A year earlier I had spent a month with two Tuareg brothers, traveling on camel back between Agades, in Niger, and Tamanrasset, in Algeria.

     I have a passion for languages and learn them easily. With the help of a lexicon I had learned enough of the Tuareg language to communicate with them without the need for an interpreter. And I knew all I had to know about camels and desert life.

     After finding an undermanned group of nine men and 102 camels, I offered them to join them as a working member of the caravan who would give priority to caravan work over photography.

     That proved irresistible and they accepted. My story appeared on the cover of National Geographic’s November 1965 issue. The magazine paid all my past expenses, besides a generous fee and an invitation to keep adventuring in their name. Over the years I would live a total of nine months among the Tuareg, three times for National Geographic and once for a children’s book.

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Sahara: The Long Way To Water

Water here, in Niger, in a Saharan Tuareg camp, is no more than a mirage on the distant horizon. This Tuareg boy is on his way to ask relatives living in another tent for a drink of water—in case, unlike his parents, they haven’t run out of water as well.

The well is far from camp. An hour or two each way, riding a donkey. Plus the hours-long wait in line behind other nomads watering vast herds of camels, sheep, and goats.  Not a daily trip. In fact, to delay the chore the boy’s family often drinks only milk during a day or two after running out of water. Forget taking a bath. The scorching sun is what takes care of germs.

The Tuareg and other nomads always camp far from wells. It protects their privacy. And their animals find nothing to feed on over wide areas around wells.  The daily passage of herds cleans them of the tiniest shoot of grass.

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Niger: Camel-Riding Blue Man Of The Sahara

I photographed this Tuareg man of the noble Kel Rela tribe near the Sahara’s well of In Abbangarit in Niger. Though he was holding a leather whip, he rarely used it.

Tribesmen in Arabia and other parts of the Sahara saddle their camels over or behind the humps, legs dangling on each sides, which leaves them little control over the animals other than through whips.

The Tuareg saddle their camels in front of the humps. This allows them to rest naked feet on their camels’ necks. To make camels kneel down they only need to apply repeated downward pressure on the camels’ necks. To accelerate the pace of camels into a gallop they only need to apply repeated forward pressure to the camels’ necks. Such control helps the Tuareg to be the world’s best camel riders.

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Sahara: Nap In A Tuareg Tent

Having spent the night far from his family’s tents, watching over his camels, this noble Taitoq Tuareg man of Niger’s Sahara Desert brought the animals back next morning to be milked. While he is resting, two of the family’s boys keep an eye on the camels browsing at some distance. Later that day, the man will take the camels back to the better pasture until the following morning again.

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Kenya: Sunrise On A Samburu Zebu Herd Being Moved To Pasture

Sunrise in Kenya’s Mathews Range is seeing a Samburu elder and two members of his family driving their zebu cows to pasture after milking them. The milk was all they had for breakfast.

I spent eight days walking with three Samburu men and three pack camels to photograph the Samburu.

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Kenya: Samburu Portrait

Semi-nomadic Samburu woman of Kenya’s Mathews Range

Kenya: Goat Milking In A Samburu Camp

In northern Kenya’s Mathews Range, also known as the Lenkiyo Hills, a little Samburu girl is feeding a baby goat some leftover milk after its mother has been milked. The girl’s mother is holding the last of the jugs she filled with her goats’ milk. Milk is all her family has for breakfast every day.

I walked eight days around the range, photographing the people along the way, using three Samburu men and three pack camels.