The central story of Herdsmen of the Sun (1989) is the ritual involving elaborate self-adornment of young Wodaabe men to “radiate their charms” for women of a large encampment in hopes of getting rated highly as in a pageant, but more importantly, chosen as a mate. However, something else is “radiating” in the migratory homelands of the Wodaabe: uranium.

The keeping of the ritual and the right to their ancestral way of life is the deeper theme of the film. While the “mating ritual” is the Wodaabe’s most famous attribute, the culture’s survival revolves around their cattle herds. The impact of infrastructure, resources, climate, and “droughts in the 1970s and early 1980s depleted the herds, so many Wodaabe have had to resort to earning wages in towns or herding cattle for their sedentary neighbors.” Losing the ability to protect their land to ensure safety for their grazing cattle (traditionally done at night), is a deeply existential threat. This article explains:

WoDaaBe have a concept, ladde hurram, which refers to a more “wild” bush. This concept is used regarding space lacking human settlement, i.e., people, waterholes, and towns are absent. When people explained this concept to me, they emphasized that not only does it refer to a space without human beings but is occupied by thieves and evil spirits ginni (sing. ginnol), making it inherently dangerous. The problem of thieves and spirits also exists in ladde but becomes more acute in ladde hurram, because the presence of people and the intimate knowledge people have of ladde makes the ladde more secure.

http://www.101lasttribes.com/tribes/wodaabe.html

According to Atlas of Humanity, “The Wodaabe speak the Fula language and don’t use a written language. In the Fula language, woɗa means “taboo”, and Woɗaaɓe means “people of the taboo”. This is sometimes translated as “those who respect taboos”, a reference to the Wodaabe isolation from broader Fulbe culture and their contention that they retain “older” traditions than their Fulbe neighbors.”

The people’s ways are scattered as they are displaced. Various sites where the Wodaabe live are visited throughout the film. One camp by the town of Arlit, Niger, near the Algerian border, has the region’s largest uranium deposit, “discovered” and subsequently mined by the French. Herzog reports that only 600 people of a population of 10,000 have work, reducing many of the Wodaabe to scavenging. The uranium mine has also impacted other nomadic peoples of the region. The World of Matter has a short video on some history of the mine and its impact on the local region. Ursula Biemann writes:

“There is a surprising number of sites in the Sahara where pivotal points in the migration network coincide with enormous deposits of natural resources. In Africa, the routes and hubs for moving raw materials and migrants frequently overlap. One such impressive case is the uranium towns of Arlit. The Tuareg rebellion in the mid 1990 was directly linked to uranium mining in Arlit and the exclusion of the Tuareg from the wealth found on their territory. The revenue from uranium extraction was shared among the French owners and the Nigerien elite in the remote capital who recruited miners from other ethnic groups from the south.

The discovery and extraction of one of the world’s largest uranium deposits was made in the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War. The magnitude of mineral extraction in a fragile terrain of nomadic subsistence created a whole new condition for the Tuareg by amplifying their existing marginalization even further. This is what prompted the rebels not only to fight for their fair share of uranium revenues but to make another attempt at consolidating their nomadic tribes into a single nation state. In the end, the rebellion failed and ended with a peace treaty which promised better social integration in a state like Niger who doesn’t have much to offer in the first place.”

From: http://www.worldofmatter.net/arlit-uranium-mine#path=arlit-uranium-mine

The deep local resistance to the mine comes from several tribes and local stakeholders in opposition to the colonial and extractive projects led by more highly developed nations. In 2021, two Chinese mine workers were kidnapped in the region. In 2010, seven French nationals were kidnapped in Arlit. An archived blog post by Menas Associates reporting on conflicts of emerging markets regions, contains further information (if you like early 2000s websites, that link is for you).

The most beautiful scene of Herdsmen, in my opinion, is not of the men excitedly huddling to discuss which woman will choose them. It is the interview with the man pictured above. Touring with the filmmakers around the village, the man is talking about the ways of his people. Herzog asks a very Herzogian question: “Do you dream?” The man smiles, one of the most beautiful smiles in a film full of smiles. “Of course I dream. When I lay on my back at night and look at the starry sky, I am happy.”

Where is this man now, is he still dreaming? Aggressive capitalist resource extraction and climate chaos affects lives and ways of nomadic, subsistence-based, and indigenous people all over the world. Herdsmen of the Sun, feels like a radiating treasure to behold in solidarity with people fighting to retain their way to live.