Surma Tribe

Surma Women

The term Surma is the Ethopias government name for the Suri, Mursi and Me'en groups. They live i very remote areas, at a young age to beautify themselves the women have their bottom teeth  taken out and their lips pierced .  Their bottom lip is then stretched over time and a clay lip plate is inserted to keep the round shape of the lip, this is counted as beautiful. The lip plate differs in diameter and over time the plate gets bigger and bigger, you can see from the photo above and to the left that they all differ in size. Recently the clay plates have started to fade out and not be so popular, the young kids paint with white clay on their face and body, using dots and circles. The Surma people have a sky god called Tuma. Nobody knows how the lip plates came into use, the plate is a sign of beauty and the bigger the plate the more cattle the women is worth. This is important when the women is getting married.