The image of a man leading a hyena through the streets of Nigeria has been making the rounds on the internet for a while now. If you’ve seen it, odds are that it was accompanied by a bit of text describing the man as a debt collector for a Nigerian gang. This is a myth. But the truth, although less scary, is even more interesting.
As it turns out, the image, along with dozens of others, are part of a collection called “Hyena And Other Men” by South African born photographer Pieter Hugo. The man in the picture is not a gangster at all, but rather a member of a traveling minstrel group called ‘Heyena Men’ that allowed Hugo to travel with them for multiple days on two separate occasions.
Hugo was alerted to the group after a friend sent him a cell-phone picture of a man walking down a street in Lagos with a muzzled hyena. Through a contact in the local media, Hugo discovered that the man was part of a group called the ‘Gadawan Kura’, which is roughly translated as ‘hyena handlers/guides’, and immediately set out to meet them. Here is a short excerpt from his story:
I agreed to travel with the animal wranglers to Kanu in the northern part of the country. One of them set out to negotiate a fare with a taxi driver; everyone else, including myself and the hyenas, monkeys and rock pythons, hid in the bushes. When their companion signalled that he had agreed on a fare, the motley troupe of humans and animals leapt out from behind the bushes and jumped into the vehicle. The taxi driver was completely horrified. I sat upfront with a monkey and the driver. He drove like an absolute maniac. At one stage the monkey was terrified by his driving. It grabbed hold of my leg and stared into my eyes. I could see its fear.
Since publication, the “Hyena and Other Men” project has generated a lot of responses, including commercial interest from an American security company and outrage in animal rights circles.
Very, very interesting stuff. Keep Wending and taking great pictures for the rest of us to talk about Pieter.
[Via: The Imagist]
Related Posts
No related posts were found.
