Arbore Village Portraits (#2), Omo Valley Ethiopia

Village visits in the Omo Valley in Ethiopia are like nothing I’ve experienced before!

The region is still tribal, and each ethnic group maintains its own customs. What all the tribes have in common is a “pay-per-shot” mentality, meaning that visiting tourists pay for each picture they take. While I see this as entirely fair – after all, why shouldn’t tribal groups trade on their distinctiveness – it does distort the concept of environmental portraiture.

Studio portraits are taken under controlled lighting and precisely edited to produce perfection. At the other extreme, street portraits are candid, and in many instances, taken without the knowledge of the subject. My preferred modus operandi is between these two points: informal people-shots made with permission, but without staging. In the Omo Valley, this was impossible: the pay-per-click mindset meant that photographic subjects were very much actors in their own shots.

And, that is as it should be! I couldn’t help but wonder, however, how much control or self-determination individual tribal members have over the rest of their lives.

These groups fascinate me: the Arbore number less than 7,000, divided across four villages along the Weito (Weyto or Woito) River. Their funeral and marriage ceremonies date back generations, as do their customs of dress, and practices of day-to-day living. Their traditional method of sorghum cultivation depends on seasonal rains and flooding, and they divide and allocate land collectively each season, giving priority to widows, orphans, and the poorest. Wealth is measured by the number of cattle owned by an individual, and this importance is reflected in the tribal name, “Land of the Bulls”: with Ar meaning “bull” and bore meaning “land”.

Unlike their fearsome and aggressive tribal neighbours, the Arbore engage in a wide regional network of exchange of gifts and goods, and get along with their neighbours. They are also protected by a legend that promises a curse if they are attacked!

I guess my questions about these groups are more political than cultural: outside their demand for 10 birr/photo, how much control over their lives do they really have, when ‘culture’ dictates their dress, their hairstyles, and their bodies. Until marriage, Arbore girls shave their heads as an indication of virginity and they are circumcised as a pre-requisite to marriage.

These questions were too big for my short visit! I was with photographer Ben McRae, as part of a small-group Piper Mackay Photo-Tour, and we were all doing our best to have a meaningful engagement – without the benefit of a common language – with these delightful people. I’ve shared some of the pictures I took previously (see: Portraits in an Arbore Village).

Please enjoy a few more: