Eric Valli

In the late 80’s, Eric Valli discovered the honey-gathering Gurung people, a Nepalese tribe that was discovered by the photographer, who worked on the story with Diane Summers and was awarded the first World Press Award in the Nature category in 1989.

Almost ten years later, by a strange coincidence, Eric Valli came into contact with the Raji, another semi-nomadic Nepalese tribe that also survives by gathering honey and fishing. For nearly eight months, the photographer followed the “people of the bees” (or beri ko manche).

Guided by Bahadur and Maskey, the tribe’s two honey gatherers, Eric Valli discovered the dizzying and surreal world of the simals. From the branches of these proud and magnificent trees, the wild bees of the Apis Dorsata family, over one inch long, suspend their impressive nests. For almost a year, Eric Valli climbed up the giant trees whose rough bark is like the skin of the elephants that come to rub against them, gathered nests perched anywhere between 45 and 90 feet high, coming down only after nightfall, fought swarms of angry bees, slept rough, trekked through the untamed jungle, walked across the territories of big cats, paddled up the river looking for mammoth catfish, lived with the men and women of the tribe, got to know them, learned to gather honey, to fish, and to understand their universe.

These pictures, while they offer a glimpse of an wild and unknown world, fascinating in many ways, must not overshadow a much harsher reality.

Today, the Raji and their way of life are under threat. The plains of the Terai, which in the past remained unpopulated because of malaria in the summer months, were sprayed with huge amounts of DDT in the 50’s. The government apportioned the land to peasants from the mountains, who cut down the trees, increased their crops, got rich and multiplied. The jungle that provided a habitat for the Raji shrank to the point that the only farming land left to them was along the limits of the great national parks. They are left with the few trees that have survived deforestation, and their land is now owned by rich farmers they must share their crops with. From more than 20,000 people in 1964, the Raji have dwindled down to just over 3,000. “Before, in the forest”, says Pagu Ram, the elder, we only needed to pray, and the Gods would come We did not know what they looked like, but we knew they were there, in that tree, in that stone. Now, I know what they look like. I’ve seen their pictures on the calendars they sell at the bazaar, but there are no longer any stones nor trees. The Gods, the demons, the wild animals, the forest, they’ve all been scared away by so many people. One morning, I woke up and I had nowhere to go“.

The government wants the Raji to settle and offered to give them land. But what is a hectare of arable land for a nomad? They were unable to keep it. Exploited, scorned, doomed to poverty, victims of alcoholism like the American Indians before them, most of the Raji have become serfs to peasants richer than they. Only a few groups such as Bahadur’s live as their ancestors did, gathering honey and fishing. They are still free, but for how long?