Photographer Dori Caspi spent time with one:
For this particular series, Caspi traveled to Namibia 15 times and formed a close relationship with the people of the Himba village. This village has been encountering a progressive amount of challenges, including the intrusion of roads upon their land, and the increasingly severe threat of the AIDS epidemic which has the potential to eradicate the village entirely. “My camera was never used as a tool of anthropological or research-like documentation of the tribes’ way of life, but always as an instrument with which I could express my love for its wonderful people, and my admiration of their inner and physical beauty.”
Caspi explains the significance of the series:
I have no doubt that on historical time dimension, the Himba, like the Omo Valley tribes, are in the last minute of their existence as traditional tribal societies. The changes which these tribes are going through, those enforced and those at will, are powerful and swift more than ever before. Roads are being broken into the tribes isolated regions, their lands are being given to huge corporates, and cellular communication is arriving at their huts. These days, almost all tribesmen walk around with cellular hanging on their chests. This is not the beginning of the end. This is end itself, and in some sad way – my art documents its last moments.
See more photos from Caspi’s series here.
The Dish 