The Hunters of the Golden Mountains.

« …and Kublai Khan sat in his gold incrusted cage and four elephants carried him. Surrounded and protected by an army of 10,000 hawkers from the Kerei tribe… » (Marco Polo 1293) Marco Polo might have been the first to tell the world about the « Bird and Man » phenomenon in the remote country of Mongolia, but there is no doubt that the courageous Kazakh warriors of the Altai Mountains practiced the ancient art of hawking for centuries beforehand; Training their golden eagles to catch rabbits, foxes and even wolves between their stretched out talons.

Nowadays there are over 450 Kazakh families living along the Hovd River and the wide valleys of the Altai Mountains; these people still domesticate, tame and train the golden eagles, not for war reasons anymore but for their hunting and survival needs.

Photographs and text ©Ziv Sherzer/Lightmediation

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