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Apashka

2011Ungurtas, Kazakhstan15 photographs + film

“Apa” or “Apashka” in the Kazakh language means “granny.” This is how people refer to a shaman woman residing in the Ungurtas village, Kazakhstan. Her actual name is Bifatima Dauletova. Regarded by numerous traditional healers in Kazakhstan as the final local guardian of an ancient Sufi dervish tradition, she conducts ritualistic cleansing ceremonies using sheep’s blood at her homestead nestled in the foothills of the Tien Shan Mountains in southern Kazakhstan.

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Apashka — film still
Film