The World at Night
“Wolf says ‘I can only be seen by those with the same spirit.’
I can only be killed by those with a higher spirit.’”
- Kazakh proverb
The World at Night is a new, long-term project documenting Kazakh herders' deep spiritual relationship with wild wolves in Western Mongolia. The story centers around a wolf-hunting tradition that, based on my research, has never been formally documented.
This community is both deeply reverent towards wolves and actively hunting them—a relationship that exists because these herders' lifestyle is so connected with the landscape they inhabit. They serve as both practical and spiritual stewards of the land and see themselves as an integral part of keeping the land in balance as they protect their domestic animals from hungry wolves while also ensuring a healthy, but controlled wolf population.
“We’ve had hard winters before, but never a juud like this in our life.
We’ve never experienced picking up the yaks to put them back on their feet.”
- Serkbold Koshegen
As climate change continues to push this community from Mongolia into Kazakhstan, away from their nomadic ways of life, thoughtfully documenting and sharing this tradition with a global audience will provide an example of what it means to truly live with the land.
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