Photographs
Insights and perspectives
A wedding
There is a big wedding and a small wedding. In the big one, the bride is escorted to her in-laws' hut following a strict ritual and has to prove that she will be a good wife. The whole thing lasts for 3 days. Only much later, after about a year of this "marriage on trial", the small wedding follows. Here, just in one day, a separate hut is built for the couple, in which they will live from that moment on. All photos shown here are from the big wedding called sud.
A funeral
With death, being is over. A life in the hut is extinguished, the bloodline is interrupted. Arbore, who were very close to the person who died, fall into trance. This is how they show and handle their grief. All the clan members escort the deceased out of their midst through their dances, away from life into the afterlife. The hut is swept out to the last remaining. All household items, seeds, livestock and jewelry are distributed among the descendants. The clan women take off their belts, which symbolize fertility. Milk and blood, the symbols of life and lineage, are removed from the clan and return home to the ancestors.
Trance
Dance
Lament and salute (sound)
Funeral (text)
