In our world, we have bar- and bat-mitzvahs and sweet 16 parties. We are debutants, we are strip club patrons. We undergo extreme hazing, 21-shot debaucheries, and imbibing until our stomachs need pumping. Call it what you like, do what you do; something marks as a celebration or an entrance into manhood or womanhood. And this is no different in Africa, and no different in the ethnic tribal groups of the Lower Omo Valley. The Hamer tribe is one of the largest in the Omo, numbering at around 50,000. As subsistence agropastoralists they cultivate sorghum, tobacco, cotton, vegetables and millet. They eat a lot of honey and rear cattle and goats. Their territory reaches south to Kenya and borders that of the Banna tribe. The Hamer people are famous for their masterful body decoration and techniques.
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