Tag Archives: environmental portraits “Music is the universal language of mankind.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Track: Narasirato – Roromera Dub Manasseh Remix) It doesn’t matter how remote from our experience people’s lives are: when they start to make music, we have an understanding of how they are feeling, and clues as to what they want to express. It is […] Rishikesh! For me, that is a name that conjures up the sound of sitars, images of pastel-coloured Hindu Gods, and memories of songs from the Beatles’ post-hallucinogenic phase. Can you believe it? It was 50 years ago, this February-past, that the Beatles followed their guru – their teacher – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to his ashram […]  (Double click for: Elkesh Herself by Kugyershin Family’s Songs) It is said that if you want to see traditional Kazakh culture, you should go to Bayan-Ölgii province in Mongolia, rather than to Kazakhstan. In the 1800s, the expanding Russian Empire pushed the semi-nomadic Kazakh tribes into neighboring countries, including Mongolia – where members of the Middle Jüz Kazakhs […]  “Yuorait?” “Yu stap gut?” The calls of “How are you?” in Papua New Guinea’s Tok-Pisin were all around us when we stopped at a simple roadside stall just outside Maprik in East Sepik Province. The local people who were gathered in the canopied shade – selling their produce, gossiping and chewing betel – seemed happy to see […]  She’s not the first, and she’s not the only one, but she is still a rarity these days: a female Kazakh eagle hunter. Hunting with golden eagles is a long-standing custom among the Turkic peoples (particularly the Kazakh and Kyrgyz) across the Eurasian steppe. During the 1930s, large numbers of Kazakhs fled from communist-controlled Kazakhstan through the Altai Mountains to Bayan-Ölgii Province in […] |
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