Picture of the Week – 12.5.15 – Bhutan
By Tessa Bunney on 12 April 2015
A Layap woman from Laya holds a ball of sheep wool which was spun using a drop spindle called a Yoekpa in Punakha, Western Bhutan | December 2014.
The Layap are inhabitants of the northernmost region of Bhutan. Their clothes are woven from yak hair and wool. They are a semi-nomadic tribe whose source of livelihood is dependent on yaks and sheep the products of which they barter with the people of Punakha for daily necessities.
Sheep farming has drastically dropped across Bhutan in the last few decades with the availability of cheap clothes and wool imported from abroad and the enrolment of children, who would normally herd the sheep, into schools.
One day I hope to visit the Layap women in their village but on Thursday I am heading back to beautiful Bhutan on another very special expedition to meet the Brokpa yak herder women in the far east of the country who make cloth from yak hair.
So this is where it starts… with a piece of handwoven yak hair fabric purchased at the market in Thimphu from a young Brokpa woman a long way from home. The Brokpa people are a semi-nomadic ethnic group living in the extreme east of Bhutan – currently the woman’s village of Merak is 3 days from the capital by road plus a days hike but with road upgrades and constructions throughout the country changing things rapidly, it is only a matter of time before the road reaches the first Brokpa village.
Walking has always been an important part of my working process both through necessity and through my desire to meet people ‘on the way’ and this journey will then continue on foot over the Nachung-La mountain pass (4153m) which is the direct route between the two Brokpa villages of Merak and Sakteng.
Who knows if I will actually make it and where in the end the yak hair fabric will lead me but I am very excited to find out.
I will be in Bhutan from the 15th – 30th May | mobile: +975 1732 8190