Photo Gallery

Harold Jacobs, a young crafts apprentice at the Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center in Sitka, poses in ceremonial clothing. He is wearing a wooden wolf hat, a thunderbird Chilkat blanket, and a silver nose ring. The wolf rattle he is holding, carved by Reggie B. Peterson, tells us that Harold Jacobs is a member of the wolf moiety.

The young Tubu woman Cherie sorting grains. - Bardaï - Tibesti - Chad - 1967

Mrs Leclerc - The tubu woman is beautiful, the facial features and fine physique suggest a Mediterranean rather than a Negroid type. - Bardaï - Tibesti - Chad - 1967

When it is festival time in Bardaï, the women adorn themselves with their most beautiful finery and become brightly coloured dolls. The silver, sometimes gold, jewellery flares in the sun. The Toubou woman is beautiful, the facial features and fine physique suggest a Mediterranean rather than a Negroid type. - Bardaï - Tibesti - Chad - 1967

When it is festival time in Bardaï, the women adorn themselves with their most beautiful finery and become brightly coloured dolls. The silver, sometimes gold, jewellery flares in the sun. The Toubou woman is beautiful, the facial features and fine physique suggest a Mediterranean rather than a Negroid type. - Bardaï - Tibesti - Chad - 1967

When it is festival time in Bardaï, the women adorn themselves with their most beautiful finery and become brightly coloured dolls. The silver, sometimes gold, jewellery flares in the sun. The Toubou woman is beautiful, the facial features and fine physique suggest a Mediterranean rather than a Negroid type. - Bardaï - Tibesti - Chad - 1967

In Bardaï, the wife of a blacksmith takes part in the festival with her most beautiful ornaments and dances late into the night. - Bardaï - Tibesti - Chad - 1967

Foot bracelets. These silver jewels are the work of blacksmiths. Both feared and despised by the nomads and the sedentary people living in the desert, the blacksmith or malem belongs to a special caste. He masters fire and material, fashioning jewellery as well as weapons or the metal parts that make up the harness of camels. - Bardaï - Tibesti - Chad - 1967

Galli, a young Toubou woman from Bardaï, is the soul of the parties that are improvised in the shade of the palm trees. She goes from house to house and gathers her friends to dance. The fabrics she wears come from the Fezzan with the camions that supply most of the Tibesti oases. - Bardaï - Tibesti - Chad - 1967

On the night of Tibesti, a wedding is celebrated. The women dance in a circle; the blacksmith sings the love songs that the young girls take up; intoxicated with joy, he beats his drum. The men look on in admiration and try to establish future kinships. - Bardaï - Tibesti - Chad - 1967

Young Tubu woman in the Maman Delaï camp near Chirfa in Djado - Niger - 1968

In Chirfa in eastern Niger, Indi Kouarodo shows us a different pattern of African beauty. The rich ornamentation of her garment comes from nearby Libya. - Djado - Niger - 1968

Kanouri woman with her traditional nose ring, Séguédine oasis - Kaouar - Niger - 1975

Young canoe woman from Séguédine. Like the tubu women, she wears a ring in the right wing of her nose, which represents a snake curling in a circle. The fine plaits of the hairstyle are re-braided about once a month. Grease or oil is added to make them shiny. – Kaouar – Niger – 1966

Young canoe woman from Séguédine. Like the tubu women, she wears a ring in the right wing of her nose, which represents a snake curling in a circle. The fine plaits of the hairstyle are re-braided about once a month. Grease or oil is added to make them shiny. – Kaouar – Niger – 1966

Young canoe woman from Séguédine. Like the tubu women, she wears a ring in the right wing of her nose, which represents a snake curling in a circle. The fine plaits of the hairstyle are re-braided about once a month. Grease or oil is added to make them shiny. – Kaouar – Niger – 1975

The beauty of the gesture of this young Kanuri woman, captured by the lens in Séguédine (Niger), should not make us forget that she is using an authentic prehistoric millstone to crush the grain used to prepare the flour from which we make the pita bread or the tasty couscous. Her gesture is the same as that of her distant ancestors, the same gesture that has also been preserved for us in Egyptian bas-reliefs. This primitive millstone, or "standing millstone", on which the grinder slides to crush the grain, must not be confused with the small Arab stone mill made up of two millstones, one, mobile, rubbing on the other, fixed, by rotation around a common axis. – Kaouar – Niger – 1966