Plates on the lips

Beauty as Torture: The Mursi Women's Lip Dishes

The Mursi are an African tribe of Ethiopia. They live mainly in the steppes of Jinka and the mountains of Omo Park, in the Central Omo region of Ethiopia. It is estimated to be about 9,000. The Jalaba, council of older men of the town, are those who make the decisions. The Mursi maintain among other ancestral traditions the Dunga, battle-festive among young people with long reeds, in which the warriors that achieve victory obtain the right to choose a wife and the respect of the opponents. They usually choose wives with large plates, because the beauty of the Mursi Women is related to clay plates embedded in their lips and ears.

Why is it so important to them?

The size of the plate determines the value of a Mursi woman. A larger size of the dish more dowry receives the family of the bride. The larger the size of the dish, the greater number of cows it gets. Without the plate, young women find it harder to get married and African women have no value if they do not marry. Families will not accept them easily and will even insult them and their dowry will be less. This tradition usually takes place between 6 months and a year before a young woman is getting married, usually around the age of sixteen.

Because lipsticks make it difficult to talk, women only use their lip plugs in the company of men, but they take them off to eat and sleep or when they are alone with women.

https://youtu.be/bkC6-miUcNg