Bernd Jonkmanns Fotografie

Callcenter, Bangalore, India
Design Delhi
Football in Rio
Geiselwind
India Agriculture
Youth in Bitterfeld
Youth in Freising
Kalkar
Poona, India
Rodrigues, Mauritius
Scharia, Nigeria
Sumatra Orang Utan Project
Tirollywood
Vietnam Religion
Magic School Cape Town

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Rodrigues, Mauritius
Off to the reef with hat and spear

Rodrigues – island of the piqueuses d’ourites, the 800 octopus catchers. A poor forgotten piece of volcanic ash soil, measuring just 104 square kilometres, located in the middle of the Indian Ocean. There is no place on earth where so many women hunt octopus with spears. The piqueuses form a blood sisterhood, standing their ground in their rubber boots. They manage to get by, bringing up their kids on their own: widows, divorcées and the jilted. They wear their symbolic, wide-brimmed straw hats with pride, knotted under the chin with coloured ribbons.

Text by Thomas Worm for a travel report in Merian magazine “Mauritius”