Mursi Woman + Paint, Mago National Park, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2010

After a year in the darkroom it’s time to get the prints out. We’ll see how the #etsy crowd takes this work in, and sees the royalty that she truly is.

This young Mursi woman lives in a most difficult environment, and holds true to her traditional culture. Even though you'll see very few other Ethiopians in her area, vans of tourists stop now and then. Each time a group of tourists step out and walk into the village. Once they do the community walks over to them in order to try and earn a living with their goods, mainly the lip and ear plates as well as woven baskets. They also earn a living by being photographed, as each tourist pays a certain amount for a photograph.

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Young Boy, Paint, Mursi Community, Mago National Park, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, March, 2010

While most of the portraits are in black/white, a sizable minority of images from my trip to Ethiopia have color parallels. It seemed both natural and important for me to do so, since the color spectrum was already almost duotone in presentation.

When the time came to do so, the film backs of the camera were exchanged and color images made. It was pretty simple actually, and the people cooperated fully for the most part. We stayed in a small town just outside of the park system, since staying within was forbidden. Every time we entered the park system we would need to take with us an armed park ranger, usually a member of the very tribe we wished to visit.

Before visiting this community I was told about the difficulties some have faced, the aggressive nature of the park's inhabitants. Stories of trucks being approached by large groups of people, products being thrown upon the tourists for purchase without choice. The reality was much different, and the communities accepted us with kindness. While they did approach me with lip discs and baskets for sale, they did so with respect and humor. They allowed us to set up the equipment without hassle and with the simplest of negotiations.

There were times when we would ask of them something different, for example to have their children stand on the bumper of the truck. They never disagreed with us and made it a most amicable environment. The older men helped us with the children, and the women stood at a distance watching all of this unfold in front of them.

The young boy above was photographed in both color and black/white. Most of the boys wore necklaces with white and black beads. Their faces were painted in various patterns of white, and sometimes this extended to their torsos. The white of their eyes was rarely white, the environment having much to do with this. They live a most difficult life, with scars on their skin as evidence.

What struck me about the color images was the sky. While I wanted so much for it to be clear, the various cloud formations proved to be quite beautiful. This, coupled with the importance the sky plays in the religious beliefs of this community, has made these images supremely important to me.

According to Wikipedia:

Like many agro-pastoralists in East Africa, the Mursi experience a force greater than themselves, which they call Tumwi.This is usually located in the Sky, although sometimes Tumwi manifests itself as a thing of the sky (ahi a tumwin), such as a rainbow or a bird. The principal religious and ritual office in the society is that of Kômoru, or Priest. This is an inherited office, unlike the more informal political role of the Jalaba. The Priest embodies in his person the well-being of the group as a whole and acts as a means of communication between the community and God (Tumwi), especially when it is threatened by such events as drought, crop pests and disease. His role is characterized by the performance of public rituals to bring rain, to protect men, cattle and crops from disease, to ward off threatened attacks from other tribes, to safeguard the fertility of the soil, of men and of the cattle. Ideally, in order to preserve this link between the people and God, the Priest should not leave Mursiland or even his local group (bhuran). One clan in particular, Komortê, is considered to be, par excellence, the priestly clan, but there are priestly families in two other clans, namely Garikuli and Bumai.

I plan to return to this land in the near future, but need to attend to another part of Africa until then. However when I do return the work will hopefully manifest itself differently, with more sensitivity for the daily routines of the communities being photographed. A fuller picture of these incredible people is the desire.

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Note: This image was made with a Hasselblad analog system.

Young Girl, Mursi Community, Mago National Park, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, March of 2010

She stood on our truck for this portrait, elevating herself above an already sublime environment. This was our last day with the Mursi Community, and we slept the night before in their midst in order to have a most perfect day.

We had some trouble early in the morning with the sun, but were rewarded soon after with pure rays. In this image she looks past her circle of houses while her entire village sits at her feet watching her being photographed. We worked with some of the men earlier, and had around us many young children waiting their turn.

One or two of the children were frightened of the truck, while most jumped up with a smile. She was of the latter group, and held her composure in the midst of chaos all around. She used a piece of fabric with a fabulous pattern to cover herself up, and only show her upper features. This was different than most of the others in that the dominant theme was the display of their beadwork, of their metal pieces. This young girl wanted to show us perhaps something different, more subtle. I appreciated this very much then and even more so now.

She lives in Mago National Park in the famed Lower Omo Valley of Ethiopia. Although the area is quite remote, she is beyond familiar with tourists since a truckload of them appears every hour or so during the busy season. During our session a truck pulled up and the local population quickly gathered themselves to walk over to the new visitors, offering their artistic creations as well as their portraits for sale.

We intended to spend the entire day in the park, photograph in the morning and then in the late afternoon as the sun set. So we had plenty of time and waited for the tourists to leave before continuing with our work. Of course I considered myself a tourist as well, and only differed in my mechanism of documentation. Women approached me as they did the others, with their plates and discs in their hands. Their trick was to put an item out in front of me and have me take that item in my hand for viewing, or so I thought. Then they would walk away quickly, in theory forcing me to purchase it.

In the end I did purchase four plates with various sizes and colors. I look at them with immense pleasure often, and think of my time amongst one of the most magnificent communities in the world, that of the Mursi of the Lower Omo Valley of Ethiopia.

halim.ina@gmail.com
Halim Ina Photography