Safari Tours and Ethnic Groups of the East and Southwest

According to one source: The Lower Omo valley within an area of 15, 000 sq kms has 10 different languages (excluding the dialects), forming the largest assortment of ethnic groups in Ethiopia and possibly in the whole of Africa.

   
Mursi
The Mursi number about 5,000 and are primarily pastoralists categorized in the Nilo-Saharan language family. The Mursi are Known for their lip plate tradition; an unmarried woman's lower lip will be pierced and then progressively stretched over the period of a year. A clay disc indented like a pulley wheel is squeezed into the hole in the lip. As it stretches, ever-larger discs are forced in until the lip, now a loop, is so long it can sometimes be pulled right over the owner's head. The size of the lip plate determines the bride price, with a large one bringing in fifty head of cattle. The women make the lip plates from clay, color them with ochre and charcoal, and bake them in a fire. Stick fighting or "donga": At a fight, each contestant is armed with a hardwood pole about six feet long with a weight of just less than two pounds. In the attacking position, this pole is gripped at its base with both hands - the left above the right, in order to give maximum swing and leverage. Each player beats his opponent with his stick as many times as possible with the intention of knocking him down and eliminating him from the game. Players are usually unmarried men. The winner is carried away on a platform of poles to a group of girls waiting at the side of the arena, who decide among themselves which of them will ask for his hand in marriage. Taking part in a stick fight is considered to be more important than winning it. The men paint their bodies with a mixture of chalk and water before the fight.
 
 
 

Karo
A tribe living on the east banks of the Omo, the Karo number about 1000. Tourists enjoy watching the Karo preparing themselves for a celebration or traditional dance when they decorate their bodies with chalk paint, often imitating the spotted plumage of Guinea Fowl. The Karo excel in face and torso paintings. Elaborate facemasks are created using locally found white chalk, yellow mineral rock, pulverized iron ore and black charcoal. Karo women scarify their chests to beautify themselves and become more appealing to their men. The scarification of a man's chest is made when he has killed an enemy or a dangerous animal. The scars are cut with a knife or razor blade, and ash is then rubbed in to produce a raised welt. Like the Hamar, the wearing of a gray and ochre clay hair bun with ostrich feathers indicates a man's bravery.

Benna
Broadly speaking, the Benna belong to the Hamar-Bashada cultural group. Numbering about 35,000 they are primarily settled farmers living in the highlands to the east of the Mago National Park. They enter the Park to hunt during the dry season; if they manage to kill a buffalo they adorn them with clay and have a celebration.

Bume Or Nyangatom
The Bume are pastoralists who inhabit the land south of Omo National Park and who move into the southern plains of the Park when water or grazing is scarce. Numbering about 6,000, their language family belongs to the Nilo-Saharan. They are agro-pastoralists, relying on cattle herding and flood retreat agriculture consisting mainly of sorghum grown on the Omo and Kibish rivers. They hunt and smoke bees out from natural nests in the Park. They are great warriors and frequently fight with the Surma, the Karo and the Hamar. The source of the conflict is usually blood feud, cattle raiding and inter-tribal rivalry which in general is very much characteristic of the Lower Omo Valley.

Erbore
This group could probably have been a "detached" section from the Borena Oromo sometime in the distant past, as it is manifested in the language they speak today. The Erbore probably number only a few thousand and live to the east of the Hamar territory, and west of Borena land. Culturally they are now more like the Hamar than the Borena.

       
     
 
copyright©2005,all right reserved, GLORY Ethiopia Travel & Tours.