Ethiopia. Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region. Omo Valley. Mursi tribe. Agro-pastoralist group. Nomadic. A group of children and teenagers, all Mursi, stand by the dirt road on a rainy day. Mursi women are known as "disk-lip" women. The bottom lip is slit along its full length and the front bottom row of teeth are pulled out to accomodate the ceramic disk which is handmade with a rim around which the stretched lip is pulled. The women are famed for wearing large...
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Ethiopia. Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region. Omo Valley. Mursi tribe. Agro-pastoralist group. Nomadic. A group of children and teenagers, all Mursi, stand by the dirt road on a rainy day. Mursi women are known as "disk-lip" women. The bottom lip is slit along its full length and the front bottom row of teeth are pulled out to accomodate the ceramic disk which is handmade with a rim around which the stretched lip is pulled. The women are famed for wearing large plates in their lips (round clay plates placed into a cut in the lower lip) and ears. The disk is seen as a symbol of beauty and wealth, and often the younger girls will pierce and strech their ear-lobes, inserting a matching disk in the extended lobe. The Omo Valley, situated in Africa’s Great Rift Valley, is home to an estimated 200,000 indigenous peoples who have lived there for millennia. Amongst them are 8'000 Mursi who dwell between the Omo and Mago rivers. Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (often abbreviated as SNNPR) is one of the nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia. 11.11.15 © 2015 Didier Ruef
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