Mursi tribe Woman Reading Vogue Magazine - Omo Valley Ethiopia

Mursi have a lot of imagination to decorate themselves! They loved the magazine, but i think my driver loved it much more!
The Mursi (also called Murzu tribe) is the most popular tribe in the southwestern Ethiopia's lower Omo Valley, 100 km north of the Kenyan border. They are estimated to 10 000 people and live in the Mago National Park. Due to the climate, they move twice a year between the winter and summer months. They herd cattle and grow crops along the banks of the Omo River.

The Mursi are sedentary rather than nomadic. Their language belongs to the Nilo-Saharan linguistic family.Very few Mursi people speak Amharic, the official Ethiopian language. Although a small percentage of the Mursi tribe are Christians, most still practice Animism, believing that plants, animals and some inanimate objects possess spirits.

Mursi women wear giant lip plate, a sign of beauty, like in Surma one, and also a prime attraction for tourists which help to sustain a view of them, in guidebooks and travel articles, as an ‘untouched’ people, living in one of the last ‘wildernesses’ of Africa. When they are ready to marry, teenagers start to make a hole in the lip with a wood stick.
It will be kept for one night, and is removed to put a bigger one. This is very painful at this time... Few months after, the lip plate has its full size, and the girl is seen as beautiful by the men. The lip plate is made of wood or terracotta. They have to remove the lower incisors to let some space for the disc.
Sometimes the lip is broken by the pressure of the lip plate. This is a big problem for the girl because men will consider her as ugly, she won't be able to marry anyone in the tribe apart the old men or the sick people...Women and men are shaved because they hate hairiness. Both like to make scarifications on their bodies. Women as a beauty sign, men after killing animals or ennemies as competition for agricultural and grazing land has led to inter-group-conflicts.

The Mursi have a reputation for being aggressive and are famous for their stick fighting ceremony called “donga”, fought by the men. The winner of the “donga” will be able to select the girl of his choice to have relations with, even though she may marry someone else. Similar to the Hamer tribe, the Mursi tribe commonly drink a mixture of blood and milk.

Over the past few decades they and their neighbours have faced growing threats to their livelihoods cause the Ethiopian government officials have been actively evicting Mursi people from the Omo National Park, their traditional lands, without any compensation. Drought has made it difficult for many families to feed themselves by means of their traditional mix of subsistence activities. The establishment of hunting concessions has added to the pressure on scarce ressources.

© Eric Lafforgue
www.ericlafforgue.com

Taken on: April 4, 2012

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tribe Peoples of the Omo Valley

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tribo etiópia tribo Αιθιοπία эфиопия 埃塞俄比亚埃塞俄比亞 이디오피아 エチオピア Äthiopien Etiopía 種族埃塞俄比亚埃塞俄比亞 Äthiopien エチオピア Эфиопия Αιθιοπία Ethiopië Etiopia Etiópia 에티오피아 Etiopía Etiopien Etiopija Етиопија Etiyopya אתיופיה 衣索匹亚衣索匹亞 ethiopie tribal tribe tri

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