The Mursi people are one of the last groups in Africa among which it is still customary, among women only, to wear lip plates capable of enormously enlarging the diameter of the lower and upper lip. The shape of the lip thus deformed has become the main distinctive feature of the Mursi, which makes them among the most interesting anthropological singularities of Ethiopia.
To obtain this cosmetic modification, a girl's lower lip is cut by her mother or another woman from the village when she reaches about 15 or 16 years. The wound is kept open with a wooden plug until complete healing, which takes up to 3 months. It is then the girl who chooses the size of the "final" target, passing through progressive steps that slowly widen the circumference of the hole.
Although it is not known exactly how this custom was born, one of the theories sees the lip plate as an intentional scar designed to make girls less attractive to slave traders. To date, many anthropologists have described how the size of the plate is also an index of the social importance of the person who wears it, and consequently of his wealth within the tribe.
What everyone seems to agree on is that the practice is an indication of social maturity and having reached reproductive age, thus indicating the suitability of a girl to become a wife.
In addition to the Mursi people, who apply the lip disc only to women, there are several peoples who use this aesthetic modification of their face. There are the Sara, in Chad, and the Makonde between the states of Tanzania and Mozambique and then the Mobali, in the Congo, where the Belgian domination forced the local populations to any expedient to seek survival.
Source: African Historical Data
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