Photographer Jimmy Nelson finds the last tribes on earth

The result was that in no time at all he got steaming drunk and slumped into an alcoholic stupor. The next thing he knew, he was waking up in a teepee tent surrounded by about 30 people with a bladder fit to burst.

Wrapped up in about eight layers of clothes and with the temperature minus-40c outside, British photographer Jimmy Nelson had no option than to pee in his pants and drift back off to sleep.

The next thing he knew was the tent had collapsed under a stampede of reindeer – animals who, unbeknown to him, are attracted to the salt in urine. Soon the beasts had surrounded him trying to lick his clothes.

“At the beginning the Tsaatan people were absolutely livid. But by making a complete plunker of myself and becoming the laughing stock of the group, they finally began to open up.”

 

Gaining the acceptance of people has been the key to Jimmy’s work.

Jimmy, who travelled widely as a young man before becoming a successful commercial photographer, has spent the last three years photographing 35 of the most aesthetically beautiful and remote tribes in all corners of the world.

His new book Before They Pass Away is a snapshot of these tribes as they are now and stands as both a piece of art and an historical document.

 

His journey took him across all five continents, visiting such far-flung places as the mountainous region of Bayan Olgii in Mongolia, the Baliem Valley of Papua New Guinea and the wildest parts of southern Ethiopia.

One of the tribes was the Mursi in Ethiopia, where the women wear clay plates in their lower lips. At the age of 15, girls get pierced, after which their lips are stretched out to create enough space to place the lip plate.

The lip plates are believed to have been invented to make women less attractive to slave traders. The Mursi are one of the last tribes to wear the plates and if the latest generation, increasingly influenced by the modern world, choose not to practice the tradition it may soon die out altogether.

While he is careful to point out that the book is primarily a commercial project as opposed to some grandiose political statement, Jimmy hopes it will create a greater awareness of the beauty and individuality of the people he has encountered and encourage a positive dialogue between the tribes and the modern world.

 

He said: “The essence of the project is to make people aware of how scarce their individuality is. Not to be patronising, but to say this is what you are and to show them they have a value that is precious.

“The world is changing and we’re not going to stop it, but I hope in my own way, to encourage them not to abandon everything that makes them so individual.”

 

While all the tribes he encountered were completely different in terms of appearance, the similarities were obvious.

“From a social perspective they were the same,” Jimmy says. “The further you get away from civilisation, the more people work as a family unit, the greater respect they have for the older generations and for each other. The further away you get, the kinder people are.”

Growing up in Africa, Asia and South America, British photographer Jimmy Nelson developed a deep fascination for the indigenous cultures he encountered and has seen first hand how the world has changed.

 

But it is the pace of change in the past five or six years, due to the internet and improved roads, that he has found most startling.

 

 

When he visited the tribes in southern Ethiopia, for example, the journey from the airport took him three weeks. Today after new roads have been built to the area it would only take a couple of days.

The next step is to return to all the tribes he photographed and show them the completed book. Then he intends to photograph a further 35 tribes in more politically unstable areas of the world where he would require special permission from authorities’ helpto get access.