The document discusses the tribes that live in the remote Omo Valley in Ethiopia, including the Mursi and Suri tribes. Traditionally, the tribes practiced customs like lip plates and scarification, but western influences are threatening their cultural traditions. While some traditions are fading, the tribes adapt incoming influences in their own ways. The tribes face threats from development projects and increasing conflict as their lands and customs change.

2. These images are a tribute to the beauty and grace of the people of the Valley.
Photography by MATILDA TEMPERLEY

3. The tribes pictured in this slideshow, (the Mursi and
their neighbours, the Suri), live in the remote Omo
Valley in southern Ethiopia. They, along with their
other Surma neighbours, are under threat from the
advance of western 'civilisation'. Here: a Mursi
woman with child.

4. When the photographer visited the
region in 2009, she encountered this
girl who didn't want to have a plate

5. The old traditions are gradually vanishing
though. Tribal fashions such as lip plates and
scarification are being supplanted by global
fashions such as baseball caps, football shirts
and, more sinisterly, the bearing of
Kalashnikovs and the Chinese-made guns
that flood all East Africa’s borders.

7. The men of the Suri tribe have a type of ritualised warfare: stick fighting. Men from different villages fight, according to rules laid down, and sometimes with
referees. Sometimes the bouts end after a couple of hits, but they can also end in death. Guns are also used to settle disputes with blood feuds common.

8. The government’s stance in the face
of criticism over Gibe III’s social and
environmental impact is to accuse its
detractors of ‘patronizing the
national interests of Ethiopia and
romanticizing traditional valley
lifestyles’.

11. A Suri woman with a wooden plate

14. Mursi woman , Omo Valley

15. The cultural heritage appears fragile,
threatened by the world encroaching
upon the territory but the people, with
their inherent capacity for transition, take
incoming influences and fashion them into
their own estimations.

16. The Omo valley is a crossroads of cultures
and civilisations with many tribal groups
surrounding the South Sudanese, Ethiopian
and Kenyan borders. The inhabitants have
developed their own unique styles of
adornment to differentiate themselves
from their neighbours, with whom they are
often at war. The Mursi women, pictured,
have their lower teeth removed and
ceramic plates inserted that stretch the
lips.

18. Suri woman and child

19. Similarly, this young Mursi woman
wanted to keep her mouth the way
it was, with no plate.. On the next
visit however, both girls had
succumbed to peer pressure and
had the plates inserted, as per
tradition.

26. The ceramic plates can be removed, pictured