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Ox-Back Ride, Mongolia
Photograph by Gordon Wiltsie, National Geographic
Often at odds with modern culture, today’s nomadic peoples continue a way of life that their ancestors practiced for thousands of years. While some move entire communities across the harsh landscapes of their native lands, others struggle to find an identity between the world’s political borders.
In northern Mongolia’s Darhad valley, an ox-back ride is sometimes dangerous, but there’s no other way to go: The adults are too busy herding to babysit. Each fall hundreds of nomadic families and some 60,000 animals leave the Darhad valley and travel 40 to 70 miles (64 to 112 kilometers) to winter pastures near Lake Hovsgol.
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Gypsy Farmer, Romania
Photograph by Tomasz Tomaszewski, National Geographic
Cutting hay on the outskirts of a Romanian village, Ionel Stoian, like many Gypsies, survives at society’s margins. Once thought to be natives of Egypt—hence the name Gypsies—the Roma, as many call themselves, originated in India.
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Gypsy Musicians, Romania
Photograph by Tomasz Tomaszewski, National Geographic
Gypsy musicians perform for villagers in Labnik, Romania. Long shunned as pariahs, Gypsies around the world struggle to assert their rights while sustaining their culture.
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Bedouin Camp, Egypt
Photograph by Matt Moyer, National Geographic
Simple bread called feteer helps feed Bedouin families in a squatters’ camp near Naama Bay at the southern tip of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Drought has pushed tribes down from the mountains to seek work, but many Bedouin men remain jobless in a country that has never embraced desert-dwelling tribes.
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Bedouin, Saudi Arabia
Photograph by Reza, National Geographic
Near Saudi Arabia’s border with Iraq, Bedouin tribal leaders meet at the tent of a prominent sheikh to break bread, swap stories, and debate news of the day. Despite the kingdom’s precipitous urbanization, the free-ranging spirit of Bedouin culture remains at the core of traditional Saudi identity.
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Winter Migration, Mongolia
Photograph by Gordon Wiltsie, National Geographic
A Mongolian boy assembles a ger during his family’s winter migration. Made of felt over a wooden frame, the round tent can be set up in a matter of minutes, and a woodstove can have the dwelling short-sleeves hot by the time the tea’s ready.
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Nomadic Herder, Mongolia
Photograph by Gordon Wiltsie, National Geographic
During migration from the Darhad valley in northern Mongolia, a nomadic herder pulls the community’s solar-powered telephone. Solar-powered satellite TV has also come to the valley, even as its people rely on horses for transportation and shamans for guidance.
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Berber Woman, Morocco
Photograph by Alexandra Boulat, National Geographic
A Berber woman shows her hand, stained dark with henna for a wedding in the Moroccan town of Taarart. There are about 25 million Berbers—also known as Amazigh—living in Morocco and Algeria. They trace their roots back thousands of years before the seventh-century Arab conquest that brought Islam to the region's mountains and deserts.
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Even Men, Russia
Photograph by Steve Winter, National Geographic
Men of the Even—a small group of reindeer herders who roam the valleys and plateaus of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula—re-create a traditional dance honoring a dead bear. One of the peninsula’s indigenous peoples, the Even fish, hunt, and herd reindeer, but rarely kill bears.
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Inuit Man, Canada
Photograph by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic
An Inuit man eats muktuk—narwhal skin and blubber—following a hunt in the Canadian Arctic. In the mid-20th century, as more and more Inuit left the seminomadic life of their ancestors and settled in towns, narwhals and other sea mammals once hunted for subsistence became a coveted source of cash.
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Tuareg, Sahara
Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic
A Tuareg tribesman leads his camels through the dunes of the Sahara. The Tuareg have historically roamed the desert from southern Algeria and Libya to eastern Mali. Tuareg caravans once dominated trade routes; today, many of those who have not settled in cities and towns make their livings herding livestock.
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Tuareg Man, Mali
Photograph by Jerome Delay, AP
A Tuareg man in northern Mali wears a traditional veil. Dyed with pigment that stains the skin, indigo veils and robes give Tuareg men a distinctive appearance and have earned them the nickname “Blue Men of the Sahara.”
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Masaai Woman, Tanzania
Photograph by Randy Olson, National Geographic
Once true nomads, many of Tanzania’s Masaai have begun the transition to a more settled life. Married Masaai women gather wood, make camp, milk cows, and tend babies, while the men lead cattle on the never ending search for grass and water.
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Bedouin Camp, Jordan
Photograph by Taylor S. Kennedy, National Geographic
Bedouin men sing and play instruments around a campfire in Wadi Rum, a stark span of desert in southwestern Jordan. Many Arabs see their origins in Bedouin culture, which centers on movement and still provides a way of life for pockets of people throughout the Middle East.
