Ethiopia - Mursi Tribe

The Mursi tribe lives in Southern Omo Valley in Ethiopia.
In a very secluded area in southern Ethiopia, only a few Mursi villages are left: the women still wear large lip-dishes and the men are fierce (and feared) warriors
The Mursi people live in one of the least accessible areas of Ethiopia. When a British anthropologist visited them for the first time in the early 1970s, they had never heard of the country of Ethiopia where they lived.
The Mursi are survivors whose isolated geographic location, combined with the crises of drought, famine, war, migration, and epidemic diseases has shaped their identity. Cattle raids and civil instability between bordering ethnic groups is merely a means of survival. Every aspect of daily life revolves around cattle and crops, which set the economic standard among the Mursi. When they trade in the market, crops and cattle are exchanged as money. When a young Mursi girl reaches the age of 15 or 16, her lower lip is pierced so she can wear a lip plate. The larger the lip plate she can tolerate, the more cattle her bride price will bring for her father.

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