The tribes of the Omo Valley Bashny.Net

Photographer Marcos Lira took these pictures in 2010 during his trip to the valley of the Omo River, which is three days away from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, and remains one of the most undeveloped parts of the world is an amazing place can be defined as a kind of a huge museum outdoor - live here four major African language groups. More than twenty tribes, some of them have tens of thousands of people, while others - less than 500, but the culture of each of them is unique and authentic.
1. A woman from the tribe Surma, who lives on the banks of the same river, in the south-western Ethiopia. Semi-nomadic tribes Surma fenced off from the world of inaccessible mountains.


2. A young mother from the tribe Surma with the child. Like many other tribes tribe Surma Valley Ohm's not directly in contact with civilization.

3. Due to the dense jungles and harsh dry climate, the region remains one of the most undeveloped in the world.


5. A boy from the tribe Surma. Although the tribe has a firearm, and even Kalashnikovs, the tribe conducts primitive way of life. The tribe does not hunt, and lives at the expense of cattle, is in Surma main wealth.

6. As in adults, and children shaved head is a measure of beauty. Expression of close friendship among children the same body-painting or makeup on the face, which they carefully decorated with each other.

7. Statement Surma say: "We are better than others, because we enjoy the freedom of the forest, we have no owners, this land is ours and we can drink milk ad libitum. We do not want to abandon the drawings on the body, cane fighting, lip plates. This is our life. We are faithful to their traditions. "

8. When a woman turns 20, her lower lip pierced (painful and dangerous because of the possible contamination of the operation) and inserted into the hole a little calcined disk. During the year, gradually inserted into ever larger plates.
9. The more wood (or clay) plate inserted into the lower lip, the girl more cattle, which parents can give as a dowry.

10. Women of Hamer tribe on their way to market.

11. Many travelers say beauty girls Hamer tribe.

12. Each tribe valley speaks its own language, each with its own customs and religion.

13. Hamer tribe girl with a child.

14. The people of the tribe to protect from the sun hair and skin plastering mixture of red clay, water, and raw eggs.

15. Ethiopia's population is over 60 million people, but it is divided into more than 80 ethnic groups. Most of them belong to the Ethiopian race, which is intermediate between Caucasoid and Negroid.

16. One of the elders of the tribe Hamer.

17. Neither the names nor passports Hamer living a primitive communal life - of course not. Not fixed and age. Woman taking in marriage when she appeared secondary signs (about 12 years).

18. Before her marriage, she will, under pain of death, to save her virginity.

19. Work in Hamer tribe only teenagers, men who can not already hold a gun, and women who are not able to give birth.

20. Young women are the same, and do not do anything, except for care of babies and improve their own body. In the latter art they can give odds to any spa.

21. Normally, a man of the tribe Hamer - two or three wives and many children.

22. The village tribe consists of several dozen round, standing on stilts huts with conical roofs. The skeleton of fit of poles, and the top is covered with a thick layer of dried grass and straw.

23. Inside the cabin is divided into a residential part (with a fireplace and a bed to sleep), a granary, goth and corral for goats. Master's bed - unusually wide. It was built of stone, covered with a layer of clay and straw, and the top covered with a variety of goat skins.

24. Women of Hamar tribe for laying hairstyles. Representatives of these African tribes used clay for this purpose.

25. Girl Hamer tribe 38,647,867

26. Woman Hamer tribe for drinking water

27. The western and south-western parts of the country, where it is the valley of the Omo River, inhabited by tribes of ethnic groups blacks: Afar, Agau, Oromo, Sidamo, Somali, cafes, badge and others. And when you consider that each ethno group consists of up to a dozen different tribes speaking their own dialects, the different languages ​​in Ethiopia will more than 200.

28. The tribes are all live apart from both the public authorities and from each other, but because almost every man here on the shoulder hangs a Kalashnikov rifle, ready for its intended use. Photo: A man from the tribe of Suri posing with AK-47

29. One of the characteristic features of the tribes of the Omo Valley - an unquenchable passion for decorating your own body.

30. Surma tribe, for example, has reached heights in specific figures on the skin, and Hamer tribe - to create complex multi-level hairstyles.

31. Famous lip disks are of two types - wedge-shaped and flat. It is believed that the tradition of wearing lip wheels came during a mass hunt for slaves: the natives disfiguring to become sub-standard "human beings", just as the early Christian nuns cut off their noses to defend his innocence from the barbarians.

32. But the Surma and Mursi lip disc has traditionally played an important social role. The larger the diameter, the higher authority of the girls, the high demand it enjoys at the fair bride.
33. Of course, women do not have wheels all the time: they take them out, for example, during a meal or at bedtime, but it is at home or on the people not to part with them. In addition, women Surma and Mursi customary share these creepy decorations are not included in the cycle, only those that were given to her husband.