A Photographer’s Cultural Trip with the Last Kazakh Nomads in China

      In early March 2009, just as the snow was beginning to melt, Spanish photographer José Luis Mejías ventured into the Junggar Basin in northern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region seeking to make contact with Kazakh nomads who were about to begin their annual migration from the southern areas of the basin, about 100–150 kilometres north of Urumchi, to the Altai Mountains, 400–800 kilometres to the north.

      From March to August, Mejías travelled with them, relying upon their generosity for shelter and transportation, to capture images of their waning way of life. When winter returns in late August, the nomads will return to their starting point in the Jungar Basin, their winter pastures.

 

Motivation

      “I first met nomadic herdsmen in non-industrialized Mongolia in 2006. I was impressed. The subtle presence of their felt yurts and images of livestock roaming vast plains, their pride of being nomads, their rich and sustainable lifestyle…all are different from our complex settled societies,” said Mejias.

      “In the past, the Greek civilization admired and feared Scythian nomadic horsemen. Chinese scholars left similar descriptions of the brave archers of the Xiongnu, the Huns.”

      Mejias said Casa Asia, a Spanish Foundation concerned with Asian Cultural Affairs, funded his photographic project as a tribute to the people shown in the images, who are Turkic, heirs of important nomadic confederations, and one among China’s 55 ethnic minority populations.

      He said, “Historians of settled societies have expended far too little effort on these nomadic people, who built empires that linked Asia and Europe, reaching as far as Hungary in ancient times.”

 

Mejías’ Adventure

      After Mejías found his way to the vast Junggar Basin, he was amazed to see camels striding along the same highways where brand new Audis, often driven by engineers of mining companies, zoomed by.

      “The Junggar Basin is powerful. An experience of seeing…nothing: not one tree, no settlements, no human activity, except that of the nomads. Wild donkeys and horses can sometimes be seen, galloping into the emptiness.”

      Mejias succeeded in making contact with a family of nomads near Qiakartu with the assistance of an English translator and guide, a young Kazakh, who was also fluent in Kazakh and Chinese. The family allowed the photographer to accompany them on their migration.

      “Nomads only deal with sheep, so I was warned to bring vegetables, sugar and tea to express my thanks for their hospitality, but they didn’t expect anything. The Kazakhs are generous without limits.

      “We usually gathered for lunch or dinner inside a yurt. The mother of the family prepared tea of sheep milk, with butter and salt in it, in the same way as Mongols drink it. I was often honoured with a special treat, having meat, along with thick noodles. They loved to gather and talk about their livestock or just the day’s events.

      “Then discussions would turn to planning the next step in their migration, according to the state of the grasslands and how much water was available. Anything found in the yurts had a unique and special use. There is nothing extra that might overload the camels. They take from nature no more than they and their livestock need. They live a sustainable life that settled people are hardly able to achieve.”

      When Mejias joined the family, it owned 200 sheep, some horses and 12 camels. In the morning, the father and his brother drove the animals to pasture; the mother began a search for water, usually that of melted snow. A small child played by himself; there were no other children around, but the child was very strong.

“He was only about two years old, but he could walk a very long distance.”

 

Applying a Photographic Style

      “In most images of nomadic life, the grass is usually green; the sheep are fat; and the people dress with traditional costumes and smiling faces. But we would be naive to accept this as true. Indeed, that paradise—summer pastures—lasts only 20–30 days. The remainder of their seven–eight-month migration takes place under harsher conditions.”

      Unlike the paradisiacal vision, Mejías found the Junggar Basin was without trees or sufficient water: the livestock were weak, requiring supplemental feeding with relatively expensive corn.

      In his work, he wanted to enhance the “anachronism” that is nomadic life; to do this he sought inspiration in the early history of photography. The language of the first images of the 19th century was used to portray the last nomads of China in the 21st century.

 

Kazakh Nomads: A Way of Life nears its End

      Mejías stayed several weeks with various families, often remaining in one place for only three days to a week, at the longest. Then the families continued their inexorable march northward to another place, where they would again erect their yurts. It seemed they were following the trailing edge of melting snow.

      But modernity has chipped away at tradition: today, the nomads benefit from using mobile phones to summon the trucks they employ to carry their tents and other household items when they move, until they arrive in the summer pasturelands, where only camels are used because trucks cannot continue.

      Experts Mejias interviewed in Urumchi helped prepare him for some of the things he would see during his journey such as the division of counties and new industries and farms sprouting and occupying the grasslands. The pastures the nomads use to get to the Altai Mountains are becoming fewer and more confined. They would tell him that the nomads can hardly access health and educational resources. Even worse, a drought since 2006 has been hard on the grasslands on which the livestock depend for sustenance.

      Mejias found this was the case. A family told him that as recently as five to ten years ago they could save enough money by year’s end to buy some daily necessities and repair their yurts. Now, this is hardly possible, and to make matters worse, they have to buy more corn to supplement their livestock’s diets.

      In response, local governments have encouraged the nomads to settle down and become farmers. Among other things, this would allow the nomads easier access to health care and educations, and many of the yonger generation have accepted the offers. Many have come to believe that their culture has become backward and out of step with the times.

      Mejías politely disagrees, asserting that the fact that the Xinjiang migrations—the longest nomadic migrations in Central Asia—are still taking place is an important part of Kazakh life and a valuable aspect of China’s fabulous cultural diversity. Even more threatening, culturally speaking, is that in neighbouring countries, including Mongolia, the nomadic migrations are now much shorter or have ceased to exist, as Mejias learned from the scholars.

      He asked Huan, a 35-year-old Kazakh herdswoman, “What will you do for your child’s education?”

Huan answered, “He will go to school in Qiakartu. I will buy land and become a farmer. Within three years, I will quit this nomadic life. All young couples think that way.”

 

Note: No stranger to China or Beijing, Mejias participated in the Olympic City Photography Project in advance of the 2008 Olympic Games in May 2007.

See examples of Mejias’ work in Xinjiang at: http://www.nomadaslibres.org (Spanish and English languages)