Women Of The Suri Tribe With Painted Faces And A Large Lip Plate. Ethiopia, Omo Valley Editorial Photo

The Suri have some extremely painful rituals, including lip plates, scarification and dangerous stickfighting. Some anthropologists see these as a kind of controlled violence to get young Suris used to feeling pain and seeing blood. These are, after all, people who live in a volatile, hostile world, under constant threat from their enemies around them.No one knows why lip plates were first used. One theory goes that it was meant to discourage slavers from taking the women. It`s undoubtedly painful. Once a girl reaches a certain age, her lower incisors are knocked out and her bottom lip is pierced and stretched until it can hold the clay plate.