The Mursi People of Africa.

By Alex in Travel on Jun 29, 2007 at 7:59 pm

Photographer Sergio Pessolano took some amazing photos of the Mursi people in Ethiopia:

The Mursi (or Murzu) are a Sub-Saharan African nomadic cattle herder tribe located in the Omo valley in southwestern Ethiopia close to the Sudanese border.

The estimated population of the Mursi is around 3900. Surrounded by mountains and three rivers, the home of the Mursi is one of the most isolated region of the country. [...]

The Mursi women are famous of wearing plates in their lower lips. The reason of this "ornament" is for avoiding to be ~~catched~~ caught as slaves.

These lip discs are made of clay. Girls are pierced in the age of 15 or 16. They remove the plate when eating.

Link [some pic NSFW] – Thanks Mikolka!

Neat stuff from the NeatoShop:

Jocelyn
Jun 29th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
The reason of this “ornament” is for avoiding to be catched as slaves.

catched??
Alex
Jun 29th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
It was a verbatim quote from the website, Jocelyn. Nevertheless, I’ve fixed it here. Thanks!
Rosi
Jun 30th, 2007 at 3:11 am
How does the ornament let them avoid being caught as slaves? Surely the slave catchers would just catch them, remove the plate and then sell them? Is it some kind of spiritual good luck charm thing?
redphone
Aug 12th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
It’s late at night and I’m feeling picky, but I’d like to put forth the idea that images of people in normal day to day dress for their culture do not infact count as “NSFW” no matter how much nudity may be involved. NSFW suggests something innapropriate when there’s nothing innaproriate about the photos at all.

If that had been the case, then National Geographic would have arrived in our parents’ mailboxes in a brown wrapper and would never have seen the light of day outside their bedroom.
Alex
Aug 12th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Afriboobies != nudity, redphone?
Parag
Apr 21st, 2010 at 12:25 am
When Mursi girls reaches puberty age , she will have her lip cut and a small wooden stick inserted, giving her new identify, she becomes a (bansanai) an age set Mursi that indicates a girls passage from girlhood to woman hood.
Mursi Of Ethiopia

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