Sheree Tams

BY SHEREE TAMS
Amid famine and war, Ethiopia’s Lower Omo tribes struggle to survive

The story of the tribal peoples of Ethiopia’s Omo Valley is writ large across their bodies - their very appearance a document of a disappearing culture. A journey to the lands of the Karo, Hamer and the Mursi requires a drive past areas stricken by famine, over washed-out mountain passes and down the aptly named Devil’s Road, where bloody conflict is never very far away
We’re driving south on a flat nondescript plain that stretches into the distance, the earth pocked with desert vegetation and short, stubby trees. Dikdiks, small brown rabbit like antelopes, dart in every direction. Topless women heavily decorated with jewellry walk in small groups alone the side of the road. Perched on platforms overlooking the scrubland are young men and AK-47’s slung over their shoulders. This is the beginning Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley and the tribal lands.
The Omo has remained isolated and self-governing for thousands of years and this is attributed mainly to the fierce territorial instincts of the tribes who call it home. Even the reach of the ancient Aksum empire, which governed much of Ethiopia and beyond from the first to eighth centuries AD, never extended here. In modern times, successive governments have been content not to exert much power here, happy to let the tribes take care of themselves, as they have for many centuries. As Johnnie, my driver and guide, tells it, “The government thinks that if they leave the tribes to fight amongst themselves, then they won’t fight against the government.”
It bears mentioning that the people of the Omo, who live south of the country’s green belt, and whose agriculture is primarily of the subsistent kind, haven’t suffered the extremes of malnourishment and famine other Ethiopians have.
Its a diverse region populated with 10 major tribes and sub-tribes, with varying cultural practices and entirely different ethnicities, including the Nilotic and Omotic. The Omo is considered by some historians to have at one point been a migratory crossroads. The most populous tribes - The Ari, Banna, Surman and Hamer - are fairly successful pastoralist and caretakers of livestock, while the smaller ones are rather embattled and are known for their violence (the Mursi) or their esthetic improvisation (the Karo).
While many of the cultural practices of the Omo tribes seem similar on the surface, such as body modification and a reliance on agriculture, they are quite different from one another and protect zealously against offences from their neighbours.
The further south we drive, the more government-administered roadblocks appear. And yet, the overwhelming feeling of lawlessness grows. Before each town, a wooden arm stretches across the road. Johnnie gets out of the car to show our permits, and sometimes I am asked for my passport.
When we reach Karo territory, I am given cause to believe Johnnie has lost his mind when he stops to pick up three armed hitchhikers - Karo tribesman toting AK-47’s One of them is wounded and bleeding from the leg, the result of a violent squirmish. I pull out the first aid kit and squeeze polysporin onto a bandage before wiping it around his wound. Johnnie doesn’t want a bloody mess in his truck, so he asks a the wounded warrior to ride on the roof while the two others climb into the backseat. Then his insists all gun clips be removed from their weapon, and tells me to check the chamber for bullets. Bouncing around on these bad road, a gun could easily go off. Sitting in the front with a lap full of gun clips and a pocketful of bullets, I realize Johnnie actually knows them. After and exchange in the local dialect, Johnnie turns quiet. I asked what’s the matter. “We were talking about the wounded guy on the roof”, he says. “I am friends with his brother. They just told me that he was killed last week in a tribal war.” Before dropping off the Karo men, I ask if I can take some pictures of their tribal scarring. They’re reluctant.“We don’t want people to think we are the Mursi, one says, “it would be embarrassing. These people are savages”.

EXCERPTED FROM THE SEPT/OCT ISSUE OF OUTPOST MAGAZINE 2004