Africa 24 Media Photography

The Mursi people, numbering to less than 10,000, are a nomadic cattle herding community who live to the southwest of the Aari in the South Omo Region of Ethiopia, 100 km north of the Kenyan border and close to the Sudanese border. Their neighbours include the Bodi, the Aari, the Banna, the Kara, the Kwegu, the Suri, Nyangatom (Bumi) and the Chai. The Nyangatom are some of the most feared warriors in the Omo Valley. They live in the dry, semi-desert lands of south-west Ethiopia and southern Sudan, where their lives revolve around their herds of zebu cattle and raising crops.They face serious competition for access to scarce water and grazing resources.

Ongoing droughts have made the situation worse. Their neighbours, Mursi, are surrounded by mountains and three rivers. The home of the Mursi is one of the most remote regions in Ethiopia. Over the past few decades, the nomadic cattle herders and their neighbours have faced growing pressures to their livelihoods. Being nomads, they move around to take advantage of available grazing and water for their cattle. However, drought, famine, war, migration, and epidemic diseases have made it difficult for many families to fend for themselves. Drought in particular has hurt the ethnic group as it has presented unsuitable conditions for growing their crops, mainly sorghum and maize. The Mursi have their own language, also called Mursi. Few are familiar with Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, and as many as over 90% were reported to be illiterate in a 1994 census. The religion of the Mursi ethnicity is classified as Animism, although about 15% are Christians. The Mursi women are famous of wearing pottery lip-plates in their lower lips. The reason of this "ornament" is to avoid being caught as slaves. These lip discs are made of clay and are often removed when eating. Girls are pierced in the age of 15 or 16. The larger the lip plate she can tolerate, the more cattle her bride price will bring for her father. Similar body ornaments are worn by the Suyá people, a Brazilian ethnic group. The plates have made the community a principal attraction for tourists and helped to sustain a view of them, in guidebooks and travel articles, as an ‘untouched’ people, living in one of the last ‘wildernesses’ of Africa. As one of the most remote people in Ethiopia, the Mursi have remained relatively autonomous from the Ethiopian government.

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