Ida Nicolaisen

Fotografen Jette Bang rejste i 1959 til Qatar i forbindelse med en etnografisk ekspedition arrangeret af den kendte danske arkæolog P. V. Glob. Her skulle hun følge, fotografere og filme to af landets beduinstammer sammen med etnografen Klaus Ferdinand. Da hun landede i ørkenstaten, havde Bang allerede slået sit navn fast som fotograf. I mere end to årtier havde hun fotograferet og filmet den oprindelige befolkning i Grønland, hun var instruktøren bag Danmarks første farvefilm, Inuit (1940), og forordet til hendes bog fra samme år, Grønland, var skrevet af statsminister, Thorvald Stauning. At Bangs billeder er professionel fotografisk dokumentation af en verden, der er ved at forsvinde, er åbenlyst, men at de også er noget andet og mere er mindst lige så tydeligt. Bangs fotografier af Qatars nomader er udtalt smukke, og de fleste billeder er tilrettelagt, så de også fungerer som selvstændige kompositioner og fortællinger. Et udvalg af billederne udstilles på Davids Samling fra 20. marts 2025 og et halvt år frem. Bogen har tekster på dansk og engelsk.

This is an account of a remarkable nomadic people in the heart of West Africa, presumably the only hunting and foraging community to withstand its bloody legacy of slave-raiding, colonisation, warfare, and environmental degradation. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Ida Nicolaisen's evocative book on the Haddad recreates the essence of nomadic existence from prehistoric times through the ups and downs of Sudanese Empires to our times. Based on fieldwork among the Haddad and a meticulous reading of the scanty sources on the cultures of Northern Chad, the author offers a fascinating description of the every-day life, subsistence strategies, knowledge, poetry and music of this little known people. The book takes the reader on hunting expeditions with one group that chases gazelle and antelope into cleverly placed 'traps' of nets; it describes how hunters of another group crawl up on their prey in disguise with bow and arrow, as Saharan rock paintings tell us pre-historic man did in the region. Ida Nicolaisen's scientific precision informs her analysis of the complex multi-ethnic setting of which the economic and social life of the Haddad form part and her insights into the traumatic implications of the history of the region on their lives. The continued existence of hunting and foraging communities in West Africa has so far gone unnoticed. By adding this valuable material on the indigenous Haddad to the puzzle, Ida Nicolaisen's book seeks to stimulate the interest of scholars, and to encourage in the public a wider and more sophisticated reading of African history, culture and social issues.

The craftsmanship of longboat-building is not something we can draw on today, so when the Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde wanted to look into this ancient skill, they needed to track down people who still had the tradition of boat-building in their culture. This book looks at the boat-building and culture of the Punan Bah people of Borneo and then puts the longboat in its wider cultural-historical perspective.