Panama: Rutilating At Corpus Cristi

Parading and dancing in Panama City’s Corpus Cristi procession, every scintillating girl and woman looks irresistible. And shouldn’t they, whose vanity invested small fortunes in time and money on hair, skins, jewelry, and, mostly, elaborately made dresses they call polleras? This is the day they are out to show their best faces. And do they succeed!

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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.