The Surma and Mursi people of Ethiopia as well as the Sara and Lobi people of Chad have a strange practice of forcing women to have Lip plates.
Interestingly, Kayefi reporters learnt that the lip plate is a form of body modification made from clay or wood and inserted into a pierced hole in either the upper or lower lip, or both, thereby stretching it. Among the Surma and Mursi people of the lower Omo River valley in Ethiopia, about 6 to 12 months before marriage, a young woman has her lip pierced by her mother or one of her kinswomen, usually at around the age of 15 to 18.
The initial piercing is done as an incision of the lower lip of 1 to 2 cm length, and a simple wooden peg is inserted. After the wound has healed, which usually takes between two and three weeks, the peg is replaced with a slightly bigger one. At a diameter of about 4 cm, the first lip plate made of clay is inserted. Every woman crafts her own plate and takes pride in including some ornamentation. The final diameter ranges from about 8 cm to over 20 cm.
Surma men have several wives, most of the time in different villages. When a woman is pregnant she cannot have any sexual relations until the year following childbirth. If the husband dies, his wives go living with the oldest of his wives. In Suri culture men are allowed whereas women are not, because the man is considered to have paid a high economic price for his wife.
The final size of the plates determines how many cattle the woman will receive as a dowry, so the more stretched her lip the better, and the more the more cattle the woman is worth. Some women have stretched their lips so as to allow plates up to 20 cm in diameter. Having a lip plate is considered a sign of beauty. The origins of this tradition are unknown.
Sometimes the lip is broken by the pressure of the lip plate. This is a very big problem for girls because men will consider them as ugly, and they won't be able to marry anyone in the tribe apart from old men or ill people. Although it is seen as a sign of beauty nowadays, it is said that the disfigurement began as a way to prevent slavers from seizing Surma women. Over the last few years, a growing number of young Suri women refuse to have their lip pierced.
Original Page: http://www.osundefender.org/?p=156510
No comments:
Post a Comment