Day Two

Day one as mentioned before had the most exciting events from a photographers point of view. The parade of over 60 eagle hunters coming from a distance below the horizon and galloping towards us was like a movie, but in real life. So dramatic. Then we had the competitions of the eagle flying from the hill to the handler and landing on his or her arm. Not every eagle found “home”.

Day Two as you see here consisted of the following events

The Chase involved the woman chasing the man and whipping him with the stick. Real life or just a game, I’m not sure….

In one competition the Eagle had to fly from the distant hill and land on the fresh meat being dragged by the handlers horse. I suppose it was replicating chasing a fox.

Then there was “Tenge ilu” which was a coin grabbing game where the rider had to pick up and toss the pink bag of “gold”.

But the game that took the longest as there were so many competitors was the tug of war. This is called “kokpar” where two riders compete trying to wrestle the goat carcass from each other