Mursi Tribe Women's Lip-Plate - Rare Cultural Tradition

Description

Mursi Tribe - Ethiopia - Omo Valley - Women's Lip-Plate - Rare Cultural Tradition
The Mursi tribe found in southern Ethiopia are mostly nomads who live in the lower parts of Africa’s Great Rift Valley also called the Omo Valley. They live side by side other tribes who don’t want outside interference and are a relatively self-sufficient people.
The most distinctive and unique feature of the Mursi is
the wearing of lip plates by their women. These lip plates or saucers are made from clay and are traditionally called “dhebi a tugoin”. According to Godman Oche, an African writer, he explained that like other forms of body decoration and alteration in the world (like ear piercing, tattooing, and circumcision), the lip plate worn by Mursi women is best seen as an expression of social adulthood and reproductive potential. It is a kind of ‘bridge’ between the individual and society – between the biological ‘self’ and the social ‘self. It is part of the “rites of passage” from adolescence to womanhood. This is done by removing the two lower teeth and inserting a hole in the lower lip. This is allowed to heal for about a month (healing balms are applied). Clay disc is then inserted progressively until it is about 12 centimeters long.
This lip disc is believed to accentuate their beauty as well as increase their status and wealth. Is is however the choice of teenage girls to have their lips pierced. Obviously, like all teenagers, they feel some degree of peer pressure, but many girls marry happily without piercing their lips, even if they sometimes change their minds and decide to go ahead with the process after they have had one or two children. So the motivations are complex.
This lip plate was purchased from a Mursi women who had removed it while nursing her baby. It was purchased in 2013. This lip plate, which measures about 4"across and is about ⅝" inch deep, looked a little bit smaller then the lip plates worn by some of the other women in the Mursi settlement - most of whom were not interested in selling.
Please look at all the pictures which are part of the description of the item and of its condition.
Sold "as is" & "as pictured."
Why selling? Seniors downsizing.