I decided to walk the Bakhtiari twice-yearly migration over the Zagros mountains after seeing the 1926 film, Grass. My photos of Bakhtiari life were shown at SOAS in 2008; along with some much earlier images – recognising that it was on Bakhtiari land that Middle East oil was first found; and the tribe invaded Tehran in 1909.
Above: DLR Lorimer was originally in the colonial service in India, before he was posted to Persia. Here he is, in 1909, shortly after his renegotiation of the key 1905 oil agreement. (This image is reproduced with the kind permission of Christina Lorimer, DLR Lorimer’s grand niece). Bakhtiari poetry has been described as “revealing the …
According to David Lockhart Lorimer, Bakhtiari poetry “reveals the real interests and outlook, and something of the experiences, of the Bakhtiari people”. He is clear that it is “the genuine product of the Bakhtiari mind” and that it owes nothing to any other poetic conventions. Laments are the most common type of poem, with grief …