Daily Archives: February 18, 2011

Oh, to be a Hamer woman, hair in ochre ringlets glistening with fat that drips down her neck, staining earthy red the heavy metal necklace squeezed tight around her neck. Or the pride of the Mursi tribe, with a 4-inch plate stretching her bottom lip until it could be the coaster for a husband’s beer glass. Or a proud Beni wife, body covered in large welts, the scarred reminder of the night she showed her love for her future husband by allowing her arms, back, legs, belly to be whipped until she bled. And then begged to be lashed some more in a show of extreme devotion destined to win his heart. And of course his family’s cows.

Hamer woman on the road to fetch water

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