Hamid Sardar-Afkhami: Photographer and Ethnographer
"My journey as a photographer and as an ethnographer has been a personal pilgrimage. I am in search of the very soul of a people, a place, a culture."
The Duhalar reindeer people live in Hovsgol — the land of the blue lake — a territory of about 65,000 sq. km in Northwestern Mongolia bordering the tiny Russian Republic of Tuva. The Duhalar are the guardians of this hidden realm, patrolling a maze of evergreen forests and snow-capped mountains on the backs of their stocky reindeer. They gain a meager existence by hunting for furs and antlers, which they sell in a nearby Mongol town.
One day, after a long Autumn migration, I was talking photographs of the women milking the reindeer with children playing nearby. A young infant-girl sat next to her mother and soon fell asleep. Her mother gently placed her on the side of a white deer and continued milking.
The Duhalar depend on a healthy domestic reindeer population not just for their milk and as a means of transport but also for their spirituality - to move through a forest haunted by the spirits of their ancestors who counsel the living through the shaman’s songs. If the reindeer vanish, the songlines of the ancestors will also cease to exist.
"In Tengerism, the world is believed to be alive with spirits. The plants, animals, rocks, mountains and water are all believed to have souls, and these nature spirits must be respected. Balance is regarded as the crucial factor in keeping harmony within individuals, the community, and the environment. When things get out of balance, there are harmful effects, and this is when the shaman is called on for help." (Spiritual Ecology)
There are hundreds of ghost shrines, called “asars,” in the Hovsgol taiga. The entire forest is a burial ground. This explains why the Duhalar are so opposed to government plans to disfigure their landscape with mines. “I will become immortal in this forest after I die,” Tsuyan, the old shaman matriarch explained.
The Duhalar choose one reindeer and mark it as a ‘totem deer’ that serves as a mount for the invisible guardian spirits of the tribe. In addition, every individual person is ceremonially linked to an individual deer that is believed to protect them throughout their life and follow them into the other worlds.
“What is Dark Heaven?” I asked her. “It is the dark space on the other side,” Tsuyan says, “full of colors, sounds and voices from where the ancestors appear and reveal their message to the living.” On odd days of the waxing moon, Tsuyan would transform herself into a deer and fly off to a place called the Dark Heavens, a twilight world full of light, sounds and voices from where the ancestors reveal their hidden messages in the guise of various birds and beasts. “We exist in relation to three things she would say, “...our forest, our ancestor spirits and our reindeer. If we lose this connection, our spirits ‘ongots’ will abandon us and the demons will take hold of our destiny.”
"The “nameless mysticism” of the nomads blends seamlessly with some progressive social ideals, but is otherwise hard to pin down. While Buddhism was quashed by the Communists, along with some brands of shamanism, the ancient spiritual values of the nomad culture survived precisely because of that lack of regimentation. But if, among the nomads, there were such a thing as a codified religion, and if it had a priesthood, the individuals he photographed would be those priests." (Spiritual Ecology)
"...a man who could call wolves to his door with an ages-old song." (Spiritual Ecology)
Falcon Boy
Hunting Party
Archers Gown
Sources:
Hamid Sardar-Afkhami: 'The Duhalar Depend on...Domestic Reindeer Population'
Spiritual Ecology (FaceBook)
Faded and Blurred - A Nomadic Life: Hamid Sardar-Afkhami
Alexey Kljatov: Macro Photographs of Snowflakes
Sources:
Macro photos of snowflakes show impossibly perfect designs
Snowflakes, night city and other things
Merry Christmas
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