Ethiopia. Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region. Omo Valley. Mursi tribe. Agro-pastoralist group. Nomadic. 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....
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Ethiopia. Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region. Omo Valley. Mursi tribe. Agro-pastoralist group. Nomadic. 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. Marc Vella is a french musician and a nomadic pianist. Over the last 25 years he has travelled with his Grand Piano in around forty countries to celebrate humanity. Creator of “La Caravane amoureuse” (The Caravan of Love) he takes people with him to say “I love you” to others and “lovingly conquered” their hearts and souls. Marc Vella and a Mursi man play an improvised duet-playing - one piano and four hands. 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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