Lip‐plates and ‘the people who take photographs’: Uneasy encounters between Mursi and tourists in southern Ethiopia

3 The Mursi live in the far southwest of Ethiopia, about 100 km north of the Kenyan border, in the valley of the River Omo. They number less than 10,000 and are one of the last groups in Africa amongst whom it is still the norm for women to wear large pottery or wooden ‘plates’ in their lower lips. The lip-plate has become the chief visible distinguishing characteristic of the Mursi, in coffee-table books and travel articles in weekend newspapers (see Figs 1 and 2). It has also made them a prime attraction for tourists, as the following quotation from an article in a South African newspaper indicates. Tourists are... now flocking to the south of the country to see the diverse ethnic groups who live in the harsh environment of the Omo Valley. Among the most visited groups is the Mursi, renowned for the huge clay lip plates worn by the women. (Mail and Guardian, 2002)