Imagine growing up without artwork on the walls, minimal paper and no pens but surrounded by bodies, nature, colored minerals and all sorts of animals with amazing designs.
The Ultimate Canvas: The Human Body
In the remote Omo valley in Africa, where the earliest known Homo sapiens remains have been found, indigenous tribes have been painting their bodies with pulverized minerals for millenia. In the Lower Omo Valley of southwest Ethiopia, eastern South Sudan and around Lake Turkana in north Kenya reside over 500,000 indigenous, tribal people. Many are agro-pastoralists who live close to the river or lake during the dry season but return to the grasslands when the rains come. The young men have the responsibility of grazing the cattle and they have long slathered on clay to prevent sunburn. Colors are used to designate position, for ritual, to ward off illness, to attract the opposite sex, to associate with family, a tribe or an animal, and of course just recently, to impress tourists.
Photos of Omo Valley Tribespeople
Most all the following pictures were taken by Hans Silvester who over three years visited nine times with the Mursi and Surma Tribes of the Omo Valley.
The Mursi have a long history of body painting, decorative scarring and piercing. Both men and woman pierce their ears for discs. Mursi woman used to commonly pierce and stretch their lower lip for a plate, but that tradition is fast fading. ©Hans Silvester.
Boys usually paint one another. As there are few mirrors in the region, the affect is in other’s reactions. ©Hans Silvester.
妈妈们会给自己的宝宝画画,这样就开始了一项终生的传统。人们认为,白色的面部涂料有助于保护孩子免受超自然力量的伤害。
Red ochre, yellow sulfur, white kaolin, white limestone and grey ash are common minerals in the area. Certain clay deposits are sacred to the tribes. Most tribes do not profess a religion, but live a life in harmony with nature and the spirit world. And illness is not thought of as a separate bodily process but thought to stem from a disturbance in the relationship between persons and their social and natural environment. www.mursi.org
“在人类的摇篮东非,人体彩绘在我看来代表了一种可以追溯到史前的生活方式,曾经使人类克服了自然的敌意。那时,艺术是一种生存手段。”汉斯·西尔维斯特。
The Surma tribe use flora and fauna as adornments. ©Hans Silvester.
Surma的孩子们用树叶、树枝、心皮、水果和种子设计创意的头部饰品。穆尔西部落使用角、骨头、贝壳和兽皮。
未经提炼的优雅。©汉斯西尔维斯特。
The desire to adorn our bodies is obviously a deep seated one. Clothes, impractical shoes, puffy hats, jewelry, makeup and hairstyles are westerner’s adornments.
The natural pigments are extracted from the soils and clay of the area.
With no architecture or crafts in their culture, body painting and piercing takes on greater meaning.
Abstract canvases.
Red ochre, yellow sulfur, white kaolin, white limestone and grey ash.
Men have larger canvases to work with so often become more accomplished artists. Boys and men paint each other or themselves. White limestone also acts as an insecticide.
粘土还可以防止晒伤。
Precursor to the wreath. ©Hans Silvester.
This youth’s ancestral bonds with nature are strong.
被风吹过的抽象画布。
As well as for decoration, clay also blocks the sun and keeps the insects from biting.
男孩从八岁及八岁以上开始照料家里的牧群。在草原上度过的时间也可以用来自我装饰。
Feathers in headresses were once restricted to elders, warriors and hunters as they symbolized an impressive kill, such as a buffalo, but now they are just used as decoration.
The temporal display is for others’ reactions.
As civilization encroaches, thousands of years of tradition abruptly ends.
Tribal Conflict Changes Omo Valley Tribe Culture
Color is both a decoration and intimidation. Automatic weapons have made their way into the Omo Valley through the recent conflicts in Sudan. Now in the Omo Valley, every family owns an AK-47.
Photo by Dmitri Markinewww.dmitrimarkine.com
Farming and cattle herding have long been the mainstays of tribes in the Ono Valley. Recently the establishment of national parks, hunting concessions, large plantations given to private companies by the government and droughts are causing the tribes to compete for resources and space. This has led to inter-group-conflict.
也许还有希望。
These tribes who have never been part of the formal economy and who prefer to self-govern by their own customs and interpretations of land borders are at risk. A very controversial dam, the Gibe III is being constructed up river from their lands. The Gibe III will be the largest hydroelectric plant in Africa. The social and environmental impacts of the dam are expected to be severe. Many of the tribes depend on the annual flood cycle of the Omo River to sustain their crops. The dam will put an end to the annual flood as well as deplete water levels in the river and in Lake Turkana. On top of that, new, enormous sugar cane plantations are being plotted out on their lands, near the dam’s new irrigation channels, which will displace many tribes. As the tribes have no representation, the government will try to force the tribes into resettlement camps and although the government says the plantations will create jobs, it will be a sedantary and restricted lifestyle for a free people so used to living with nature.
As globalization takes over, much in our world that is unique is fast disappearing.
所有图片©Hans Silvester。
Represented by theMarlborough Gallery.
Hans Silvester was born in Lorrach, Germany in 1938.
Hans Silvester has almost fifty books to his credit…
Hans Silvester Books
Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africaby Hans Silvester
Tribes of the Omo Valleyby Hans Silvester
More Information About Omo Valley Tribes
www.mursi.org
www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/omovalley
www.survivalinternational.org/news/9125
Dmitri Markinesays
2nd last picture of a boy with a gun belongs to
Dmitri Markinehttp://www.dmitrimarkine.com
Please attribute it properly or delete it.
Petersays
What right has anyone to expropriate the lands of these beautiful people or steal their water?
lievens guidosays
Just like to tell that i go for a trip to Ethiopie..and i’m grateful to see this very nice pictures
meta vlegelssays
I would love to print one of Hans Silvester’s breathtaking portraits on canvas or wood. How can I do this legally or purchase a print?
Patricia Shivers Taylorsays
我被这篇文章感动了,我是一名艺术家,我制作的娃娃代表了非洲人民,就像Hans Silvaster在《来自非洲的装饰》中描述的那样。我做的娃娃有彩绘的脸和真正的部落服装。我的艺术作品在洛杉矶的美术馆展出。我的一个泥面娃娃将在艺术杂志上发表,希望展示这些人的美丽。我将继续创作这件艺术品,以引起人们对大自然在野外的美丽和创造的关注。