We’re not the target but according to 45 year old Banna tribesman Mosku Guni, the game scout that’s escorting us deep into Mursi country, the Mursi are treacherous livestock raiders that on occasion even kidnap the Banna and sometimes, as an act of intimidation, resort to displaying chopped up Banna corpses on their common boundary.
‘Look’ he says, pulling down his camouflage trousers and showing us the bullet wounds. ‘These are from years of fighting with the Mursi.’ None of us South Omo tribes like the Mursi. They are barbaric thieves and will never change…
Shovashova Mike Nixon has mountain biked down the Great Rift Valley escarpment from the Ethiopian town of Jinka.
The views are endless. We meet him on the side of the road at the entrance to Mago National Park. The game scouts won’t allow him to continue into Mursi country. Too dangerous,they say. So we load up Mike and his Bike and with Mosku Guni go in search of the Mursi.
But Mosku Guni whose been a game scout here for more than 20 years is not entirely happy and has got his Kalashnikov close at hand. ‘It’s not a good time’ he says ’ Many of the Mursi villagers are practicing the Donga Ceremony in which the men often fight to the death with long sticks. Don’t quite know what to expect.
Will keep you posted.
SOMETIMES THEY FIGHT TO THE DEATH.
Explains Adimasu our Ethiopian expedition member.who four years ago was part of our world first journey to track the Great African Rift Valley from Djibouti to Mozambique and is now back with us.
We can’t believe our good fortune, as if by absolute luck,we’ve arrived on the third day of the fierce Mursi Tribes Donga Stickfighting ceremony fought with long sticks up to 2.5metres in length.
One of yesterday’s fighters has got his wounds all wrapped up in pieces of cloth. The ‘Prize’ that two of the Warriors will be fighting for is a beautiful Mursi girl,who has moved from the shade of a thorn tree to lean demurely against the bush bar of our Land Rover Discovery.
I jump backwards as an AK47 round goes off close to my ear. Down comes a fighting stick and then another AK round into the air. The tension builds ! Some of the warriors have very dazed looks as they circle each other with their sticks at the ready.
Our man Mosku Guni,the armed wildlife ranger from nearby Mago National Park is getting fidgety. ‘Time to go-the drinking has started’ he says. I explain that,with permission we’d still like to photograph some of the Mursi women wearing their clay saucer-like decorated lip plates.
The Mursi are undoubtably one of the most fascinating tribes of the kaleidoscope of cultures that make up this South Omo region of southern Ethiopia.
Will keep you posted.
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