The Hunt

Álvaro Laiz documents life among the Udege as they go on hunt in the Primorsky Krai region in Russia, an extremely remote area. For the Udege people, tigers hold a special status in both their culture and environment. Though the Udege hunt animals as part of their survival, as a spiritual and superstitious people they do not believe in killing tigers. Beyond mere practical considerations of the tiger’s role in the local ecosystem, keeping away the more indiscriminate killers like wolves and bears, the Udege acknowledge the tigers as clever, calculating predators, better appeased than confronted. Tigers don’t just attack: they strategize and stalk, silently and patiently. In 1997 a Russian poacher called Markov came across the trail of a enormous Amur tiger. Despite the risk, Markov saw the tiger’s footprints as a promise for a better life. He shot the tiger, but was not able to kill it. Udege people believe that if someone attacks a tiger without good reason, Amba, the dark side of the tiger, will hunt him down. Without realising it, Markov had unleashed the Amba. Over the following 72 hours the animal tracked him down and killed him. Later investigations suggested that the tiger planned its movements with a rare mix of strategy and instinct and most importantly, with a chilling clarity of purpose: Amba was seeking revenge. This animistic belief constitutes the leitmotiv to experience the impact of nature in the Udege communities across one of the last remnants of shamanism: the culture of the hunter.