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| Suri woman with lip plate (Source: Pic Fair) |
My curiosity question for this week’s
reading comes from watching the videos of the Suri women stretching their lips
so that they would be married and families would receive cattle / marriage
price. How is lip stretching seen among other tribes like the Suri? Are there
any repercussions if women do not stretch their lips?
In doing my research I’ve learned some
interesting information about another tribe called the Mursi that also partakes
in women lip stretching but the reason and how it is seen is a little different
from the Suri tribe. The Mursi tribe does stretch women lips for marriage but a
big difference is that the Mursi tribe is that they partake in arranged
marriages that also have a prearranged marriage price even before the women
starts to stretch her lip. “When seen in the light the lip-plate worn by Mursi
women is an expression of female social adulthood and reproductive potential.
Another tribe called the Kayapo is also different from the Suri and Mursi tribe
because they men stretch their lips which are extremely rare in most African
cultures. “ The lip-plate worn by a Kayapo man, which marks his fully adult
status, but also to the penis sheath that is ‘bestowed’ on a Kayapo boy at
puberty and which ‘symbolizes’ the collective appropriation of male powers of
sexual reproduction for purposes of social reproduction (Turton 2004).” Aside from lip stretching being a cultural
practice that had lasted many of years throughout history it is clear that
across tribes the lip plate has a similar meaning of fertility and readiness to
marry just with different variations of specific details attached.
To be a woman and not have your lip stretched
plays and important part on how you can be perceived. “The lip-plate is a powerful visual marker of
Mursi identity. For a Mursi woman, not to have a pierced lip is to run the
risk of being mistaken for a Kwegu, a client group of hunters who live
along the banks of the Omo, while to have a pierced but not stretched lip
is to run the risk of being mistaken for a Bodi, northern neighbors of the
Mursi, with whom they are frequently at war (Bodi women insert small plugs
in their lower lips) (Turton 2004)”. This means that aside from stretching your
lip for marriage it is seen as a type of cultural identity marker in these
tribes that can play a big part in survival as well as marriage and acceptance.
Work Cited
Turton, D. (2004). Lip-plates and the people
who take photographs: Uneasy encounters between Mursi and tourists in southern Ethiopia. Anthropology
Today, 20(3), 3-8. doi:10.1111/j. 0268-540x.2004.00266.x
17 comments:
This is very interesting because I have seen the lip plate but I didn't know that a man or a woman was perceived based on his/her lip plate.
Hi my name is Avery Davis and I learned a lot from this. As a kid growing up I always seen African people wear plates on their lips whenever I see that on Television. I did not think it to be for marriage at a younger age I thought they was trying to perfect their birth defects to make them noticeable. Now that I know its true meaning I can educate anybody who is also confused.
Great post! Lip plates are used by the Mursi women as an accessory to accent their beauty. While the lip plates are not mandatory, they do influence the amount of cattle the family will receive for their daughter. If there is more than one man interested in a Mursi girl, the family can use the size of the lip plate as a bargaining chip. Younger generations of Mursi women have to travel outside their village, this allows them to interact with other cultures. Many acknowledge that body transformation is a "backwards" tradition. As a result young Mursi women are opting out of lip plates. Younger men are turned off by the drooling lip plates cause.
Citations:
LaTosky, S. (n.d.). Reflections on the lip-plates of Mursi women as a source of stigma and self-este e m. 382-397. Retrieved September 30, 2018, from http://www.mursi.org/documents-and-texts/published-articles/shauna-latosky/the-lip-plates-of-mursi-women
Hi my name is Tonii Saffore. I enjoyed reading your post and I like the fact that you took the time to not only research why the Suri women pierce their lips, but also how it correlates to other tribes who do similar things. I have seen pictures and videos of this and I never understood why this was done. The ways of this culture reminds me of the Chinese people and how they believed that foot binding represented beauty and the more their foot was bonded together the more beautiful they were seen. we know now that it was not a safe practice and a lot of women died from this.
Hello my name is Tae'lor Pearson and I really enjoyed reading this post. I was so interested in it that I looked this up on YouTube so actually get a vision of what this looks like. I think it's pretty cool that these Suri women does this and how other tribes does this as well and the fact that males do it too. I have never seen anything like this but since reading and watching about it I understand why this is actually done and I can actually educate others about this.
I find this blog post very interesting because I have never heard or seen the practice of lip stretching. I found it very interesting that it is rare for the men to practice lip stretching compared to the women’s and what they were perceived based on the size of their lip plate. I also found it interesting that the tribes have a different meaning behind the practice of lip stretching.
After reading upon "Spotlight on Students: Social Rammifications of Lip Stretching" I feel I learned more information. I like how Tiffany Creer went into more depth with the different tribes. I saw a few clips on the "Suri Tribe", however I didnt know there were more tribes with women and men that stretches their lip out. I find it interesting that the men in "Kayapo Tribe" pierce their lip to show their full adult status.
Renée Wade
When I was younger, I always wondered about the plate in their mouth but I didn’t even know it was a plate. This blog post really educated me a lot of this topic. This is definitely post I would share with people because I know people wonder about this because photos of “Africans” are always shown with the plate. (The use of quotation mark are because I don’t want to offend anyone by me not knowing all the different ethnicities)
Hello my name is Natasha Terrell, I enjoyed this reading. Looking into the different tribes and what they do to embrace adulthood is very interesting. I remember seeing the lip ring previously in some reading I was doing and I had just wondered if it was a fashion thing or if it was culturally relevant. I see now that different tribes have those different meanings.
I did not know Suri women along with Mursi women stretch their lips. The image of the woman's lip above seems huge and like it would be hard to take care of. The women of the Mursi tribe wear them like we wear various accessories like earrings, but theirs has a larger meaning as cattle and daughters are concerned. It is also interesting how the lip plates are so similar to piercings but they mean very different things.
Makayla Peterman
Interesting read! While I knew the Lip Plate was used amongst some men for Adulthood in Africa, It was new to me to find women used them and even further more intriguing that it could help keep them from danger. Knowing that it is also a social group identifier is fascinating. The fact the could be mistaken for an enemy or just potential danger or of another group is a major factor. Having to be sure you have the right markings while going about your life and land.
I find it interesting that the lip plate that the men and women wear means so many different things. I've seen lip plates before but didn't really know why they were worn.
After reading this article, it kind of inspired me to go and look some of this stuff up. In class we were talking about "Cultural Appropriation", and how we take things from other cultures and make it our own. I've seen about every culture do the lip stretch or ear stretching, however I did not know that with this specific culture it means something. I find it interesting they do this for marriage, I've always thought it was more of a fashion statement.
I wonder do lip stretching mean other things within other cultures, or tribes amongst the African people?
Jovan Black.
I use to see Africans with I never knew why Africans wore lip plates. The fact it to represent marriage is interesting. I would have never thought that's what it could be about.
-Kyla Thomas
This was interesting. It would throw me off if I saw a woman or man with a lip plate. Is it hard for them to talk? Can they take them out while sleeping or at home?
-Jasmine Busby
The lip plate is disturbing. I just don’t know how they were able to take some of those things. I didnt know that you were judged off the lip plate or piercing. -castrele hoy
So do the women have to keep the lip plate in there mouth every and all day ? And can you where different types of lip plates or you have to keep the same one on ? So I think the lip plate looks painful and it doesn't look health.
-Jaden Clark
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