A bunch of lonesome heroes.
Gaelle,David, Ben and Jo are in Malealea this week-end. Tomorrow all four ride out in a possie for a whole days ride up to a village in the mountains. They will eat and drink and talk with with the shepherd village and Chief Khotso. You can see Ntate’s Khotso’s Merino goats in my book. Sleep in a goatsherd hut with mice and little chickens running around inside that hut. Pigs snorting outside! When you get back to the lodge after another full day’s ride with the lovely smell and sweat of the ponies and their leathery tack and the aromas from the pastures, cattle and oxen which envelope you as you pass, you will not like the smell of the.....
Malutis on a Horse 4
The last two hours of the passage of this mountain range is downhill and end with the infamous ‘Slide-your-ass-pass’ – known to the Basotho as Lekhalo-la-Seli (The pass of Wisdom) and it is wise to heed this name. The decent is long and tiring and mistakes come easily, especially at the end of the day. The last part of the pass is steep and winding, every corner presents a new challenge for the horse and rider. But Oh the reward is great for those who make this effort; The Ribaneng River and its’ winding and well treed valley greet the weary traveller with promises of lush camp sites and sweet water. The horses smell the grass and water and hurry on.....
Basotho People at Work ~ About the Book
About the Book ~ Basotho People at Work
FOR THE best part of a decade, businessman turned photographer René Paul Gosselin has been increasingly drawn to the remote mountain kingdom of Lesotho.
Gradually, he has learnt that, rather than chasing people and scenes, he should ‘wait quietly by the roadside’, and his subjects will eventually arrive by themselves.
This approach has resulted in a stunning set of photographs depicting the lives of a people who, while fundamentally at peace with themselves and their environment, are constantly at work: ploughing, reaping, threshing, winnowing, milling, weaving, and tending their livestock.
They include images of a gathering of hundreds of Basotho horsemen in the remote central highlands, held under the auspices of their paramount chief, to discuss grazing.....
Malutis on a Horse 3
From here on we leave the beaten bridal path for the not so well trodden goat trails and they get thinner. Somehow these routes cling to the edge of the mountain and it seems that they could fall off at anytime and so could we. Our direction always south-easterly, follows the lay of the valleys. At the top of the next one a strange man appears to stand out from the cliff face; it is a large standing stone – ‘Fika-la-Motho’. Over the pass and down again into the valley is a vast marsh, flat and luminescent with lush grasses and streams on every azimuth. Like good children they all find their way past the village of Qhoasing and into.....
Malutis on a Horse 2
This journey was conceived more that two years ago, while riding with friends from Malealea Lodge to Semonkong and back over a more northerly part of the same range. After five days it was decided. I would do a longer journey but on my own. You can’t submit good friends to the whims of a photographer. So plans where drawn up over the previous year and here it was, day one and we are already high up through the first part of the range. At this point the narrow bridal path is near the 2000m contour and is just a scratch on the side of the precipice. Half a kilometre below our hooves is the fabulous ́Masemouse River and our.....
Malutis on a Horse 1
The ‘Luti’ is a person from up. The Basotho are the people from down. Hence the Maluti Mountains are full of ‘Baluti’, Mountain People – I would rightly or wrongly presume. These are the kind of discussions that you have time for when riding up (Holimo) from down (Tlase). And when there is such a substantial difference between down there and up here I can understand why the concept is so important.
Climbing away from the great Makhaleng River, forded at Ha Joelle near the confluence of the Ribaneng River, the great towering pyramid of Lekhatje, appears as though directly imported from Egypt. We have already crossed twenty brown lines on my 1:50.000 ordinance survey map. That is five hundred meters by.....
Rich Minds Busy People
The lives of the Basotho are intimately linked to their land and their livestock. Most of their activity happens outdoors, and is very visible to the tourist and the photographer. In fact, I have never encountered more industrious people than the Basotho. Perhaps it is the proximity of the mountains, whose influence makes the climate so unpredictable, and the chores more urgent. Perhaps it’s just the way of the Basotho, who find that their close and constant connection with the world of the spirit informs their daily activities – as should perhaps be the case for all of us.
Methods of farming and animal husbandry appear to be out of date; one could say they resemble those found in history books relating.....
Lesotho, Loved from Afar
The essential store of knowledge of the Basotho culture is not only held with the confines of the Kingdom of Lesotho itself.
Since the early days of the 19th century, people from all walks of life and from all parts of the world have visited the country that was first inhabited by the San, before the arrival of the Baroa, the Nguni, the Griqua, the Kora and Barolong, the Asians and the Europeans. Many became attached to the country and those who moved on took with them memories at least.
Sekonyela, the son of Mantatisi, a Tlokoa group from the region, campaigned throughout Southern Africa with his heteroclite horde and changed the lives of the Nations he conquered, all the way up to.....
Who is watching who
The first attempt of any enthusiastic observer, writer, photographer or inquisitive tourist at the discovery of Lesotho in the larger sense will inevitably lead to extensive travel. Days are spent rumbling along the gravel roads of the mountains and tearing along the fine tarmac roads of the lowlands looking for the special picture, the Basotho cavalier with Morokotlo hat, and wrapped in his black and yellow Sienna Morena blanket astride a fine bay pony. Or hours of driving the mountain road to see the large numbers of herds and herd boys heading out on their annual transhumance towards the summer grazing valleys in the Central Range.
Eventually the traveller seasons, or like a good wine, aerates once the cork is out and.....