Factrum publishes the answer to this question of a historian and professional traveler Inna Metelskaya-Sheremetyeva.

“When we were going to Ethiopia for the first time, we, of course, read heartbreaking information about the ominous Mursi tribe in various geographical magazines. What is not attributed to them: witchcraft, and increased aggressiveness, and cannibalism, and other wild customs with self-mutilation. And as an argument, the authors of these articles always present women of the tribe with their plates inserted into their lower lips and men whose bodies are covered with scars - notches in honor of killed enemies. I will disappoint you right away. Modern Mursi are people quite adapted to commodity-market relations, which, in fact, live thanks to the legends and visits of numerous tourists.

Photo source: Moya-planeta.ru

Although something of the old traditions and rituals remained. First of all, that notorious plate of daebi (with the diameter of our dessert), which to this day some women are inserted into their lower lip. It looks strange and scary. But I tried to get to the bottom of the tradition and, it seems to me, I found the answer. This self-mutilation is an attempt to protect oneself from slavery, which has nothing to do with spirits or rituals. The fact that it has become a fashion and a visiting card of Mursi at some stage in the historical process is a whim and an irony of fate.

A long time ago, parents, so that their daughter would not be sold into slavery, tried to disfigure her as much as possible. They shaved her hair, scarred her, pierced her lip (for Mursi) or ears (for the Masai). Wooden plugs were inserted into the holes, the diameter of which was constantly increasing. The girl eventually turned into a scarecrow with a bald head, removed upper and lower incisors and a tray above the chin.

But even today the Mursi (those who pose for tourists for money) manage to insert a plate of unbaked clay into their lips, and the Masai and Masai manage to stuff a cola bottle or even a saucer into their ear.

How do they eat? Of course, taking out the plate... At the same time, the lip hangs with a grayish-brown unpleasant flagellum, a skin, therefore women eat only when no one sees them, laying maize porridge and other simple food with their fingers deep into the bowels of a toothless mouth ... "

About a kind of high and about people who rolled their lips The head of a woman from the Mursi tribe resembles a medieval fortress. The mouth is like a fortress gate with a palisade of teeth, a folding bridge of the lower lip, a tongue alert at the entrance and numerous gate services. The loophole eyes seem to look rather unkind.

A Mursi man and without additional fortification is a warrior to the marrow of his bones, without a machine gun, he will not walk out of the yard, even if he is under the influence of psychotropic drugs around the clock.

Mursi worship the demon of death, which, in their opinion, is contained in each of them. Neighbors consider them to be the most bloodthirsty and cruel killers in all of Africa. However, they are not known for this - who in our world can you surprise with cruelty? - and the lower lips of their women. Chaste Europeans once agreed to consider that such an amazing operation on themselves by the Murcians was done for beauty. "Savages, sir". They stretch their ears, they say, so why not stretch their lips? In fact, the ears don't count. The auricles are placed on the sides of the head just to liven up the boring roundness of the nape. Other than beauty, there is no benefit in earlobes. Another thing is the functional part of the body. For example, fingers. Perhaps it would not be difficult to bend them more intricately and gracefully with a few precise strokes, to make them not so monotonous and straightforward, but then it would be inconvenient to use them in everyday life and on the hunt. The same situation is with the lips, which are needed for such an important procedure in life as eating. When a functional part of the body undergoes transformations, compensation requires a strong incentive, some kind of dividend, a tangible practical benefit. Changing the muscular structure of the face means causing yourself great inconvenience for life. So why do this? The answer is that making this construction is part of the Murcia marriage ritual.

When the girl reaches maturity, her lower lip is pierced and a small twig is inserted into the hole. Then the twig is changed to a plug, and so on - we know the technology of making "tunnels". When the turn of the real labial disc comes, the beauty has four lower front teeth removed.

Mursi do not have a particularly sterile environment and antiseptic preparations, but they do not need this. Since childhood, they have the strongest immunity against any infection. Bumps on the skin are healed larvae of various insects. They are gradually, one by one, implanted under the skin, they live and develop there for some time, until the body of the Murcian in a fierce struggle seals them forever. Such a Murcian mantu. Each scar is a conquered tropical disease. The pattern of these scars is a certificate of completed vaccination course and a survival elementary school diploma, which gives a ticket to adulthood - in other words, a referral to piercing.

When the lip cracks, tears and bleeds, it is coated with special healing potions. At the site of the gap, new, stronger muscle fibers and connective tissue grow. Mursi's piercing is voluntary. Nobody slaves a girl. How did you feel like an adult - welcome to the piercing procedure. If the lip is not pierced, it means that marriage is early. Such is the simple logic, according to which you can live up to old age without a hole in your lip, without a family, wealth and respect from others. This pretty young lady has not yet decided on marriage. And the expression on her face tells us that her life is not sugar.

The woman decides for herself when she is sufficiently prepared for family life. By the fact of piercing her lip, she declares her desire to participate in quotations on the bride exchange. The most persistent train to champion muscle ring volumes, inflating their value to the skies.

It is important not to overdo it here, because you can get into that segment of the market where only the wealthiest Murcian warriors operate and, thus, narrow the circle of buyers too much. The warrior Mursi's lip is not a fool, whoever he will not marry - his fellow tribesmen will laugh. A warrior is supposed to choose such an important purchase as a wife meticulously.

Why does he need a defective wife, not tuned? What to do with it? And what, in fact, to do with the tuned? The basic options are clear even without prompts, and we will not consider ingenious ways to bring the lips of a Murcian woman into working condition by putting it on various objects, winding options and other traditional kung fu. Someday, the descendants of today's Mursi, who have mastered literacy, will themselves enrich humanity with legends about the art of their ancestors. True, by that time there will be no more bearers of true mastery. And, unfortunately, the idea of \u200b\u200bthe entire breadth of the spectrum of possible manipulations with this elastic device will disappear for the uninteresting mankind.

But, one must think, there will be caring people who will not disdain even a broken penny from the treasury of world traditional culture. The courageous look of this man does not give rise to doubts that the banner of the proud Mursi tribe, if necessary, will be picked up from weakening hands.

True, the mayonnaise cap in the lip of this gentleman looks comical in comparison with the solid jug caps of Mursi women. Genetics clearly let us down. Only the poorest Murcia invalid would buy it in the bride market. Size matters for Mursi, and the bride's value is determined based on the length of the lower lip, its thickness, density and mobility.

But even the most prominent lip in itself does not make its owner a woman of exceptional dignity. Because the wife of the "luxury" class is whose both lips are stretched. Even the most inveterate Murcia fashionista rarely dares to take such a trick - because then how to eat?

As the Mursi women approach perfection, they lose all ability of speech, facial expressions and any consideration. What, in other matters, is not required of them - they are not valued for that. They are doing quite well with the household.

Mursian women rarely smile. A smile is a mimic action that draws the lower lip to the face and visually reduces it, from which all glamor disappears.

Murcian women are the pride of their husbands. A good wife is of great value to a warrior. By the size of the wife's lip plate, you can immediately determine how solid the man is. And it is obvious that among the Mursians there are men of incredible toughness.

A good wife can cost 10 cows, and wealthy people can have a dozen wives. The Murcian builds a separate hut for each of them and lives with them in turn. The entire women's council of the tribe knows about the latest internal political changes - who moved to whom, which young lady put a twig in her lip and is preparing to participate in the competitive struggle, and which married matron took out a disc, being dissatisfied with the conditions of detention or not getting along with her husband's characters.

A married Murcia woman never leaves the house without a labial disc. The disc indicates that the woman is busy, and just needed to keep fit. A free woman Mursi can walk without him. In this regard, there are many ways to give others a sign "free cash". A disc that is often taken out in public indicates that at the moment the movable property - the Murcian wife - is put up for auction and can be bought.

Fans of extreme adventures may ask a question - is it possible to go to visit the Murtians? Is it possible to get in close contact with this ancient culture? It's not all that simple, because these are warriors of death, they are bad jokes. Their murder is considered part of the national ritual, and for each killed they get the right to carve a little chevron on their hand. According to the regulations of the military fashion of the Mursians, when there is no more room on the hands, the chevrons are cut out on the chest, then on the stomach, and then on the hips. With such an intensity of hostilities, it usually does not reach the rest of the body surface, because sooner or later the warlike Mursian lays down his violent head in battle.

But we also have people who can prick such chevrons up to their heels. Maybe they know how to somehow come to an agreement with each other. Well, yes, there are people who know how to be friends. They say that hot Murci women simply melt with friendliness when a brave Russian tourist touches them.

Most likely you will call their customs savagery.
It is understandable, some things happen at the level of the Middle Ages, some hardly fit into the head, and some even make the hair move.
And the plates in the lip are quite harmless ... They also circumcise women at birth, decorate their bodies with scars, creating whole pictures, mercilessly chop with sticks in a dispute over the bride, without a twinge of conscience they are ready to kill any of the hostile tribe, and the bride is ransomed for 20 cows and a machine gun ...

Welcome to the Mursi tribe, one of the brightest and most famous African pagan tribes, which one day may not be ...

2. ... and the reason for this is the onset of civilization and ... the tsetse fly.
Some 10-15 years ago, only a few travelers could boast of seeing with their own eyes women with a plate in their lips from the Mursi tribe. The thing is that the Mursi, along with a dozen other tribes, live in a hard-to-reach area in the valley of the Omo River and zealously guard the borders of their territories from neighbors and newcomers.
Even in our time, on tourist forums, you can often see information warning about the dangers of visiting tribes in the Omo Valley and categorical recommendations not to try to get to Mursi on your own. Aside from jokes, if you poke your attention to them without being accompanied and guarded, you can never return home ...
Today, the region between the Mago and Omo rivers, inhabited by tribes, is the territory of the Mago National Park, the visit of which is strictly regulated. You can get here legally only accompanied by organized groups or with the help of an accredited travel company that provides a jeep with a driver and an obligatory guide who is well acquainted with the tribal leaders. In addition, at the entrance to the park, an armed ranger will be put into your car, whose task is to ensure both the safety of visitors and control over them in order to avoid any conflicts.

3. The territory of the national park is a green savanna with practically no traces of civilization.
Only this dirt road reminds us of what is left behind ... There is no mobile communication, no electricity, or anything else that we are used to in everyday life.
Before, there was no road. In recent years, it has been rolled out by jeeps of lovers of non-standard tourism and ... trucks of builders who carry everything needed to build a sugar cane processing plant. The plant is being built outside the park, but the only road passes through it.

4. The Mursi tribe lives on a territory with a total area of \u200b\u200babout 2 thousand square kilometers, rather tightly guarding its borders and not allowing strangers, except for the quota of tourists and construction trucks agreed with the Ethiopian government.
On a seemingly deserted road, here and there you can see men with spears or Kalashnikovs. Sometimes unarmed people go about their business.

5. Mursi live in small villages with a population of several tens to several hundred inhabitants. In total, there are about 7.5 thousand people in the tribe.
The village is a chaotic hut built of straw or twigs, the main "square" where tribal elders spend their time and livestock pens.
Mursi are cattle breeders, and quite successful ones. This tribe is considered one of the richest tribes in the region, thanks to the number of livestock. By and large, every important social act is concluded here with the help of cattle, for example, in order to marry a girl, the groom's family pays the bride's father "dauri" - as a rule, these are 20-40 cows and a Kalashnikov assault rifle. This tradition is typical for all Omo tribes, and that is why girls born here are considered a good guarantee of the family's well-being.

6. And it was girls, and later women, who became the hallmark of the tribe thanks to their famous huge plates in the lower lip. I talked in more detail about the tradition of inserting a plate into the lip in yesterday's post. The rest of the traditions are below.
One of them is weapons. Almost everyone is armed here, at least men.
It happened historically. To survive, to protect their territories from the claims of neighbors, to protect livestock from theft and wild animals, Mursi have long been armed to the teeth and, without hesitation, use weapons for their intended purpose. Spears, guns, machine guns - who is rich for what.

7. In the Mursi tribe, women do the bulk of the hard work: they are responsible for building houses, caring for children, preparing food and delivering water to the village from the nearest source or riverbed. The men of the Mursi tribe are herders. Their main occupations are grazing cows and goats and guarding the village. Men are also responsible for protecting the village in the event of tribal conflicts. At the same time, girls from an early age help their mothers with the arrangement of everyday life, and boys learn to handle weapons.

8. Mursi women, in addition to the famous plates, wear a lot of jewelry. I must say, with plates, ikebans on the head and even horns, they look very impressive.
Neither men nor women wear hair on their heads, shaving them off completely or doing hairstyles like the child in the photo.

9. Mursi's huts are of two types: capital ones made of straw, as in the photo, and summer huts, made of sticks, as in photo №5.

10. In the huts made of sticks, the roof is very dense so as not to let water through during the rain, but the walls are "transparent". This allows the daylight to pass through, unlike the "capital" huts, and cold weather does not happen here ...

11. The main food of Mursi is dry porridge made from grated maize or sorghum. Sometimes milk and blood of an animal is added to it, taken fresh directly from the wound on the cow's neck (the animal is not killed in this case), or already collected earlier and stored in kalabas. Mursi meat is practically not eaten, using it only on major holidays.

12. Mursi's favorite drink is coffee with spices of a very peculiar taste, from which Antoshu antonapostol almost turned out and turned up until the evening.
But the locals drink it, believing that it is very good as a preventive measure, if suddenly a tsetse fly bites

13. Men "hang out", as a rule, separately from women. And also over a scoop of coffee.

14. Many people sleep in the open air, giving their wife and children the opportunity to spend the night in a hut.
The tribes do not have pillows; instead, they use unusual toilet seats called borkoto. Men carry them everywhere with them, as we carry a mobile phone. During the day they sit on them, at night they put them under their heads ...

15. The traditional clothing of the Mursi has always been goat skins, but recently more and more Mursi are dressed in lighter cotton capes, which are bought in the markets. Today, all men already tie multi-colored fabrics around their hips, Mursi women can still be found in clothing made of hide, however, they more and more prefer to use fabrics.

17. Mursi's wedding customs are interesting.
When men come of age, they can try to get the right to marry. How does this happen?
In a fair duel on sticks. These fights are called dong fights, for which young men prepare for a long time, mastering the art of fighting with long sticks.
In a duel, they mercilessly thrash each other with sticks, because only the winner will have the right to marry this year.
If you lose, the whole next year you will graze cattle, not thinking about the warm female breast at your side ...

18. Women, in order to be as attractive as possible to men, as I wrote yesterday, wear huge ceramic plates in their lower lip.
Mursi's lower lip piercing is done for young girls who have reached the age of 12-13. First, a small wooden washer is inserted into the lip, the size of which is gradually increased, stretching the woman's lip, and then changed to ceramic saucers. In order to insert it into the girl's lip, her lower teeth are knocked out.

19. But tearing a lip, knocking out teeth and a plate is not yet the most barbaric thing women do here.
At birth (and often at a later age) girls undergo so-called female circumcision. In other words, the clitoris is removed. For what?
To make a woman submissive and not prone to cheating.
By the way, these tribal traditions are very much contrary to what happens in the sexual life of the rest of the Ethiopian women (but more on that another time)

20. So, the phrase "do not be born beautiful, but be born happy" very well suits the Mursi girls ...

21. By the way, in recent years, not all Mursi girls have had their lips cut for a plate. Some abandon this tradition, limiting themselves to discs in the ears ...

22. Besides plates in the lip and clitorodectomy, Mursi has one more distinctive feature.
They practice scarring the body. For men, these are marks for killed enemies or large predatory animals, for women, they are simply adornments.
Yes, yes, they paint with scars on their bodies, like in our world with tattoos.

23. Some girls just amaze with their "jewelry"

24. Her lips are intact, but her ears ...

25. ... and the skin on the body ...

26. Can you imagine how many incisions and scars needed to be made?
And this is in conditions of complete unsanitary conditions and the absence of any, even potential, medical assistance.

27. "Draw" everywhere - on the shoulders, arms, back, stomach, chest ...

28. The Mursi, culturally and linguistically, are related to the Suri tribe and consider themselves one people. The Mursi have good relations with this tribe and even inter-tribal marriages are allowed. The rest of the tribes see the Mursi as an aggressive people, and relations with them are rather cool. Sometimes even serious conflicts break out, including armed ones. But we know little about this, because there are no reporters, no TV cameras, not even the police ...

29. Despite numerous warnings about the dangers of visiting the tribe and some fears in their reaction to cameras, the inhabitants of Mursi turned out to be quite friendly and pleasant to talk to. And this is also an "achievement" of civilization. After all, tourists are money. Each photo is money. A little, 5 birr per shot. But there were three of us, we photographed many, so all these people started earning a little and said goodbye to us with smiles on their faces, waving their hands for a long time after the dusty off-road vehicle ...

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Appearance

Both men and women of the Mursi tribe cut their hair short, shaving a variety of ornaments on their turtles and use different designs.

The traditional clothing of the Mursi has always been goat skins, but recently more and more Mursi are changing into lighter cotton capes, which are bought in the markets. Today, all men already tie multi-colored fabrics around their hips, Mursi women can still be found in clothing made of hide, however, they more and more prefer to use fabrics.

Mursi men are known for fierce stick fighting. And women - wearing a plate in the lower lip that resembles a clay saucer. The size of the disc depends on the social status of the girl, and, as a rule, indicates the number of livestock that the family hopes to receive by marrying her. At a young age, girls cut through part of their lower lip and begin to insert wooden discs, constantly increasing them to sufficiently large sizes, until they replace them with clay “dabies” on their wedding day. In this case, some of the lower teeth are knocked out.

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It looks strange and scary. But this tradition has a historical background. The fact is that this self-mutilation is an attempt to save oneself from slavery, which has nothing to do with spirits or rituals. The fact that it has become a fashion and a visiting card of Mursi at some stage in the historical process is a whim and an irony of fate. A long time ago, parents, so that their daughter would not be sold into slavery, tried to disfigure her as much as possible. She had her hair shaved, scarred, and her lip pierced. Wooden plugs were inserted into the holes, the diameter of which was constantly increasing. The girl eventually turned into a scarecrow with a bald head, removed upper and lower incisors and a tray above the chin. When the lip cracks, tears and bleeds, it is coated with special healing potions. At the site of the gap, new, stronger muscle fibers and connective tissue grow.