A Woman’s Life along the Tibetan Plateau
By
Eleanor Moseman
Six years ago, while on a solo trek on the Tibetan Plateau, I came upon a small village in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. I met two Tibetan women seated upon freshly tilled soil; the elder insisted I join her and her companion. After one cup of tea, hail and winds chased us into one of the women’s homes. The storm passed yet we remained together through the evening; every morning I was told to stay one more day. I accepted her invite and during that week I met her daughter, Yeshe; a quiet woman who labored in the shadows and who would eventually show her simple life was filled with hard work, poverty, and trauma.
After an emotional goodbye, and with no means of remaining in contact, I returned in 2016. I was immediately welcomed back. Yeshe and I grew close; relying on funny noises and gestures to express ourselves through the complicated language barrier. Since 2016, I’ve made numerous visits to document traditional Tibetan life in this remote and overlooked part of the country and to tell the story of Yeshe: a woman born into poverty and who has matured into a vision of a modern-day warrior. Yeshe is in her mid-30’s, unwed, childless, and the caretaker of a household that includes her mother and three brothers. It’s rare for women to remain unmarried past their early twenties. Her mother says it’s because “she doesn’t look good.” And her culture treats her like an adolescent because she has not had children. Despite these constant criticisms and adversities, Yeshe confronts every day with humor and strength.
On a typical summer day, Yeshe wakes before sunrise to milk the yaks and finally closes her eyes after midnight. Her hours are filled with menial household chores such as laundry, dishes, and sending livestock to roam. Life on the Tibetan Plateau may appear static and routine, yet there are significant differences as the climate changes throughout the year. Late spring is the beginning of the season of nomadic life. Yeshe will take yaks and horses high into the mountains and live at a camp for months at a time. The little valley nestled among the peaks is home to tents with dozens of women and the area comes alive with smells of campfires and milk. Work and life are labor-intensive and after the yaks are milked and sent to graze, the women spend the remaining hours of light on their hands and knees harvesting Tibetan fungus caterpillars: the mummified moth larvae that have been taken over by a fungus thrives at the high altitudes of the Himalayas. The dried worm is eventually sold as a valuable Chinese medicine. Summer is the season to harvest barley; a staple of the Tibetan diet. The grain is finely milled and then prepared in a small bowl with tea and butter to create a staple food called “tsampa.” During the 2017 barley harvest, Yeshe fell off the back of a tractor and suffered a severe injury that removed enough skin to expose her skull. Without a hospital nearby, she had to travel two days by car to the city for three emergency skin grafts on her forehead. Besides her pain and distress at the time, she also couldn’t communicate with the Han doctor who spoke in Mandarin. And her illiteracy prevented her from writing her name; other Tibetan patients and visitors helped her communicate. Chinese hospitals can pose problems for ethnic minorities such as Tibetans. In some instances, patients use another person’s government ID or bribe hospital staff for treatment. In addition to her limited access to healthcare and the benefits of a social welfare system, Yeshe was never offered an education.
This project is an ongoing story of a woman that exemplifies dedication and bravery. Yet, it’s also about poverty and an alternate narrative to the common mythologized visions of Tibet. Yeshe, like other Tibetans, lives in one of the most physically challenging environments. In the coming years, I will continue to document the lives, struggles, and tribulations of Yeshe, while creating a visual archive of the Tibetan people and culture.
After an emotional goodbye, and with no means of remaining in contact, I returned in 2016. I was immediately welcomed back. Yeshe and I grew close; relying on funny noises and gestures to express ourselves through the complicated language barrier. Since 2016, I’ve made numerous visits to document traditional Tibetan life in this remote and overlooked part of the country and to tell the story of Yeshe: a woman born into poverty and who has matured into a vision of a modern-day warrior. Yeshe is in her mid-30’s, unwed, childless, and the caretaker of a household that includes her mother and three brothers. It’s rare for women to remain unmarried past their early twenties. Her mother says it’s because “she doesn’t look good.” And her culture treats her like an adolescent because she has not had children. Despite these constant criticisms and adversities, Yeshe confronts every day with humor and strength.
On a typical summer day, Yeshe wakes before sunrise to milk the yaks and finally closes her eyes after midnight. Her hours are filled with menial household chores such as laundry, dishes, and sending livestock to roam. Life on the Tibetan Plateau may appear static and routine, yet there are significant differences as the climate changes throughout the year. Late spring is the beginning of the season of nomadic life. Yeshe will take yaks and horses high into the mountains and live at a camp for months at a time. The little valley nestled among the peaks is home to tents with dozens of women and the area comes alive with smells of campfires and milk. Work and life are labor-intensive and after the yaks are milked and sent to graze, the women spend the remaining hours of light on their hands and knees harvesting Tibetan fungus caterpillars: the mummified moth larvae that have been taken over by a fungus thrives at the high altitudes of the Himalayas. The dried worm is eventually sold as a valuable Chinese medicine. Summer is the season to harvest barley; a staple of the Tibetan diet. The grain is finely milled and then prepared in a small bowl with tea and butter to create a staple food called “tsampa.” During the 2017 barley harvest, Yeshe fell off the back of a tractor and suffered a severe injury that removed enough skin to expose her skull. Without a hospital nearby, she had to travel two days by car to the city for three emergency skin grafts on her forehead. Besides her pain and distress at the time, she also couldn’t communicate with the Han doctor who spoke in Mandarin. And her illiteracy prevented her from writing her name; other Tibetan patients and visitors helped her communicate. Chinese hospitals can pose problems for ethnic minorities such as Tibetans. In some instances, patients use another person’s government ID or bribe hospital staff for treatment. In addition to her limited access to healthcare and the benefits of a social welfare system, Yeshe was never offered an education.
This project is an ongoing story of a woman that exemplifies dedication and bravery. Yet, it’s also about poverty and an alternate narrative to the common mythologized visions of Tibet. Yeshe, like other Tibetans, lives in one of the most physically challenging environments. In the coming years, I will continue to document the lives, struggles, and tribulations of Yeshe, while creating a visual archive of the Tibetan people and culture.
Yeshe greets the camera with a muddy smile after taking a nibble of dried mud pinched from the walls of her family’s home. It’s not uncommon that Tibetans enjoy the taste of mud. Fresh fruits and vegetables don’t grow at high altitudes; medical professionals believe this craving is triggered by a lack of vitamins and minerals.
Yeshe mixes fresh yak dung with a little dirt and presses the mounds onto the stones that form the foundation of the house. These dirt/dung patties will bake under the extreme high altitude sunshine and once dry, they will be used to start fires in the hearth and to keep the home warm.
Yeshe teaches her younger brother, how to use the hand-cranked centrifugal milk separator that separates fresh yak milk into curds and whey. This device is one of the most common Tibetan household items. The curds will be dried under the sunshine while the whey will be formed into a creamy butter. Butter and dried curds are added to tea and mixed with ground barley, called “tsampa”.
Yeshe carries a handwoven basket filled with dirt up to the roof of her family’s home. After she has removed weeds and stones from the roof, she fills the dips and holes to prevent water leaks or collapse. Besides her mother, Yeshe is the only woman in the household and is responsible for most of the domestic duties.
Yeshe removes wet blankets that were stored against the interior wall of her home. The previous evening, a thunderstorm blew through and heavy rainfall caused leaks along the walls and roof. This little home rests in the village that sits at 3500 m above sea level and is protected by the Mountains. The extreme climates of the Tibetan Plateau can bring heavy winds, intense hail storms, blizzards, and frigid Himalayan temperatures. Tibetan structures are built with simple materials such as timber, stones, and mud; making the structures vulnerable to the elements. Blankets, textiles, and sleeping pads are stacked against the walls to keep the home tidy. Yet they also insulate and protect the family inside.
After breakfast and early morning chores, Yeshe takes a nap. She is the first one to rise in the mornings, well before sunrise, and begins the days by milking yaks and then sending them off to roam. She will labor throughout the day, cleaning and cooking for the family, and will be the last to fall asleep at night.
Yeshe (far right) works alongside women of her community during the barley harvest in Tibet. Women are generally responsible for cutting the stalks of grain while men load the tied bundles onto tractors and horses. During the harvest, the golden fields fill with hundreds of people moving along in line as they cut the stalks. Although the days are long and laborious, the communities see this as a time to share with friends and family, and the valleys are filled with song and laughter.
Flames billow out of the stove after Yeshe drops a single match onto dried yak dung patties and juniper branches. The stove will be used to cook dinner for the family and to heat the home until the very early hour of dawn. Yeshe usually prepares and cooks the meals for her family, which includes her mother and three brothers. A common dinner consists of vegetables such as cabbage or potatoes with a little yak meat over rice.
Snuggled into her bed after a long day of labor, Yeshe spends her late-night hours playing games on a mobile phone that belongs to one of her brothers. She rarely leaves the village or ventures out alone so her mother and brothers see no use in her having a phone.
Yeshe cuts the stalks of barley with a scythe. The barley grain will be threshed by beating the top of the crop against a hard surface and then collected and milled into ground powder to make “tsampa”. It is mixed with Tibetan butter and tea or water to create a staple element of the Tibetan diet. Tsampa is also a historically significant cultural food commonly used in Buddhist rituals; practitioners of Buddhism will throw pinches of the flour into the air as offerings to animistic gods.
While lying in a hospital bed, Yeshe describes her pain to the mother of a fellow patient. During the barley harvest, she fell off the back of a tractor causing a life-threatening injury to her head. After two days of travel, she arrived in the major city where she received a skin graft under the care of Han Chinese doctors. Yeshe is nearly illiterate and has a limited ability to speak or understand Mandarin. To communicate to the hospital staff, she speaks to other Tibetans who must then translate to the doctors and nurses.
Yeshe applies a little makeup before going outside for her late afternoon work. Makeup has not been a daily routine, but since her accident, she makes efforts towards her personal hygiene and strives towards a standard of beauty. Around 35 years old, she’s still single and childless. Her mother says the reason she is alone is because “she’s not pretty.”
Yeshe and her mother go through a bag of Tibetan beads used for making women’s headdresses and necklaces. While Yeshe is still recovering from a tractor accident, she continues to be a jokester and places a heavy amber stone on her mother’s head. These “dzi” beads (black and white), amber, and red coral stones can be very expensive. The size, weight, and quality can represent a woman’s social and financial status in the community.
As the prankster of the family, Yeshe sprays her mother with water after washing the family’s dirty laundry. The Tibetan days are filled with work and labor so the laughter Yeshe brings to her community helps alleviate the daily struggles.
A “srung khor”, or protective circle, is a sash worn by Tibetans. The sashes are decorated with “ga’u” (amulet boxes) to hold sacred materials such as religious texts, blessing cords, medicine, and relics. Portraits of Lamas and Rinpoches (high ranking monks and teachers) are also hung off the sashes. Srung khor’s can be worn across the chest, around the waist, or neck and carried on pilgrimages or extended stays away from home. Yeshe is leaving home and heading to live and work at a nomad camp on a plateau during late Spring. After the barley field accident, her family insists she wears her amulets and portraits of Lamas to ward off evil or mishaps.
Yeshe prepares her horses to ride up the mountains to the nomad camp during early Summer. Tibetans grow up around horses; most women can mount a horse, even while wearing a long skirt, and ride for hours without a saddle. She will spend the next two months among dozens of other women and hundreds of yaks.
The months of May and June is the time for caterpillar fungus harvesting. Yeshe lives in a nomad camp during early summer and will spend the hours between morning and evening crawling on the ground searching for “yartsa gunbu”. Caterpillar fungus (yartsa gunbu) is moth larvae that have been overtaken by a parasitic fungus to create a petrified worm. Classified as a medicinal mushroom, it’s most commonly sold and used as traditional Chinese medicine.
Yeshe listens to her brother’s plans to ride motorbikes with friends to the small town. Yeshe is around 35-years-old, unwed and childless, and is a mother figure to her 17-year-old brother. It’s common for Tibetan families to have eight to ten children and because of the age difference between the eldest and youngest, it’s common for older siblings to take on a parental role.
Yeshe observes her brothers (from left to right) work on their motorbikes. Like most Tibetan women, Yeshe doesn’t know how to drive a motorbike. Yet most Tibetan men learn to drive before their feet can touch the pedals. One reason for this gender disparity may be because women are expected to stay near the homestead to attend to their duties or for personal safety
Yeshe makes a balloon animal for her nephew. His father had recently been incarcerated for murdering a man and the family worked hard to keep the nine-year-old entertained and emotionally stable during a time of pain of loss. Yeshe has gone through suffering so she know the value of mental well being.
* The name of all persons, villages, and cities are not specified to preserve identity.
06/02/2021
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Eleanor Moseman | Visual Storyteller
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Based in China for nearly 13 years until recently, She is a photographer that focuses on social and cultural narratives involving women and ethnic minorities of Tibet and Xinjiang. Striving to create imagery and stories that seek resolutions of the inflicted while sharing voices of the unknown and persecuted. She has been using her photography work and storytelling skills to contribute to anthropologists, historians, conservationists, and activists. Her work is often used to supplement published work in regards to the cultural genocide taking place in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Tibet, and the environmental changes occurring on the Tibetan Plateau.
Accomplishments include being a TEDxShanghaiWomen presenter in 2016, recipient of the 2019 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, one of the 14th Annual Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, and a 26,000-mile solo bicycle tour around China and Central Asia that spanned from 2010 to 2012. Eleanor’s photography and adventures have been published in The Guardian, PBS NewsHour, The Atlantic, Nikon: Learn & Explore, The LA Times, and many other international publications. Her work was recently on display at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Rose-Hulman Institute and currently on display at the British Museum in London. Currently, in Dayton, she is focusing primarily on portraiture and lifestyle photography. She recently returned from East Tibet during the initial COVID-19 outbreak and is dedicating time to building a permanent home in Dayton, building “The Lone Huntress Photography Studio” at Front Street that will specialize in portraiture and lifestyle photography while also serving as a gallery to her decades worth of visual archives from Asia. Currently enrolled at the University of Indiana, she is continuing her Tibetan language studies and preparing for Wilderness Medicine courses for her return to the Tibetan plateau. |