Mursi Tribe – Clay Lip Plate

This woman is from the Mursi tribe who reside in southern Ethiopia. She had the largest lip plate I had ever seen. It was so heavy she had to constantly support it with her hand. Lip plates are made from natural clay found in the surrounding environment. This tradition is slowly fading away the more the younger generations of women refuse to blemish their facial features with this practice.

It’s a customary tradition that when a young woman reaches puberty or marriageable age she will start the process of stretching her lip to eventually wear a lip plate. It’s a sign of beautification and having a lip plate is a status symbol that can fetch the woman’s family a large dowry price for her hand in marriage.

The young woman endures her two lower teeth being knocked out, (usually by a rock), a slit is then made in her lower lip. Here a small wooden plug is inserted. This plug is replaced by a larger one on-going until the lip is stretched wide enough to hold a clay plate. For the rest of her life, she will have a deformity in her lower lip which will hang down loosely without the lip plate in place.

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