Brent Stirton: Omo Valley Tribes

In the sprawling, desolate Southern Omo River Valley region of Ethiopia are several tribes living as they have for centuries, in voluntary isolation from the modern world. Recently, however, the tribes  --  Dassanech, Mursi, Hamar, Karo, Bume, Beshadar and others  -- are under increasing pressure from the outside world. Most recent is the Omo River dam project to provide hydroelectric power to Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. This will reduce the river to one-fifth its size and eliminate the flood plain so valuable to Omo Valley tribal farmers. The geographically distant government in Addis Ababa appears to place little importance on the threat to these unique Omo Valley cultures, and the days of their existence as intact cultures are numbered.

My trip to the region was two weeks in duration, starting midway through December 2007. The purpose of the trip was to make color portraits as part of a worldwide project on diminishing/disappearing cultures. I was also hoping to access any kind of ritual or ceremony.

Getting to the Omo Valley is not easy. I flew to Nairobi, Kenya, where I met Mark Ross, an experienced guide who organized my trip into Ethiopia from the Kenyan side. Two days later, we flew to the Ethiopian town of Omaratie. From there we travelled by boat up the Omo River, cruising along centuries-old riverbanks. Occasional cliffs showed the different layers and histories of the earth, different colors and textures piled on top of each other, millions of years in the making.

Dassanech tribal members
[Click on any photograph for the slideshow ]

The Dassanech live in two small villages alongside the Omo River. They are proud and beautiful people. The men have intricate multicolored skullcaps, are slight of build, tall and elegant in their movements,  and wear simple wraps, much like the Masai of Kenya. The women are tough as nails; the younger ones are beautiful and exotic-looking, but life is hard and they look more haggard as they age. Like most females in the Omo, they wear skins on their lower halves but go topless except for layers of beads and ochre on their skin. Elders are a study in how an environment carves character into a human face. Cattle are important to all Omo tribes, and the Dassanech are no exception. Allowed to graze on the savannah during the day, at night cattle are kept in natural branch kraals with brutal thorns to discourage predators.

Outsiders are regarded as a source of money, AK47s are everywhere and people are aggressive in their pursuit of cash for photographs. It’s sad really, for the people of the region have a limited idea of what money can buy but already have a taste for it. As money acquires more value in their society, it will eat away all that makes their society unique.

Karo mother and child

From the Dassanech, I traveled by boat and overland to the Karo tribe. They are the smallest but most sophisticated tribe. Numbering less than 1,500 people, they live in two villages within easy access to the Omo River. Theirs was the only village where I saw a new school and an impetus to educate children. The Karo are nice people, very laid-back pastoralists who enjoy being visited and love to get dressed up and put on a performance. They paint their bodies with white paint almost as a homage to Keith Haring. While I was there, they danced and the entire village turned out.

Bume tribal member with ritual scarring

From our base camp near the Karo villages, we travelled to other tribes. Our first stop was the Bume people. They have their own style, the men often farming nude. They rushed to cover themselves when I set about taking pictures. This self-consciousness is recent and a sign of change. Scarification is common throughout Omo Valley tribes. Women use it to signify beauty. On men it indicates he has killed an enemy and is a tribute to his courage.

A Mursi woman with full lip-plate

The Mursi, in the national park, are some of the worst examples I saw in the Omo of how money can corrupt a culture and make its people unpleasant to be around. The next day we travelled four hours upriver, to a more remote Mursi village. Female tribal members orten have large lip-plates. The plates are bizarre and easily the size of a side-plate from a dinner set. Beginning at puberty, the process involves inserting a small plug underneath and through the skin supporting the bottom lip. This is gradually stretched through by using bigger plugs until eventually a clay plate is placed in the gap and held by the stretched lower lip. I thought there must be some mystical spiritual element to this lip-plate, but it is done for purely aesthetic reasons. Walking to the village, I chanced upon the bizarre sight of a young woman with a full lip-plate carrying a bright red parasol and clay handbag for her lip-plate. She was just as surprised to see me, and after calming her down, I was able to shoot some simple but truly surreal images of her and her parasol on the savannah.

Young Hamar woman

The next day we drove for a few hours to the village of Turmi, a dusty market town around which many Hamar people make their home. Monday is market day, and I watched as tourists took photos of exotic ochre- and butter-covered Hamar women carrying huge bales of straw into town. The market itself is designed to sell souvenirs to tourists as well as serve as a trading post for grain, goats and cattle.

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Brent Stirton is a senior staff photographer for Reportage by Getty Images. Specializing in documentary work, his work has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, The Sunday Times magazine and other respected international publications. Brent is obsessively preoccupied with getting to the heart of what he's photographing and often lights his documentary portraiture. 

Comments

[isaac]

thank you for the window into this region of Ethiopia.

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[Margo7]

The effort that went into creating this story was just fascinating. Did you go to Africa with an assistant or were you doing it all on your own? Did you use film or digital camera?

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[Singapore Photographers]

The photos are great. Great colour, lighting (in bad harsh sunlight) and of course the people themselves.. love this gallery!