Tribes and their Rituals

Though the years there have been discovered thousands of different tribes. Not only these tribes differ  in location and language, they also differ in their ritual and beliefs. Even though a lot of tribes have disappear because of colonizers and their impositions there still a large quantity of unique and awesome tribes that people should learn about. It is very interesting to learn about different tribes so we could know what are their different rituals, clothing, paintings, and more, and of course learning the meaning for them. It is important for the world to keep these tribes growing and do not extinct them, such like in the past.

Some of the most interesting tribes I have found are the Kayan Lahwi tribe and the Mursi tribe . The Kayan tribe, also known as Bwe people, located in Northern Thailand. These group of people are identified because the women use rings in the neck (brass neck coils), which symbolize beauty. The women who use this neck rings are known as giraffe women to tourists. At five years the girls start using the rings and through the years the coil is replaced by a longer one, compressing the collar bone to the rib cage (not elongating the neck per se). Usually Kayan women do not remove the coil, only to replace it with a new one. The muscles atrophy, the collarbone bruises and get discolored, so women prefer to wear them always. Also, when interviewed, they said "after using it for ten years continuously, it feels like an integral part of the body".

The second tribe that caught my attention is the Mursi tribe. This tribe is located in Ethiopia and have a population of 7,500 habitants. They are considered to be agro-pastoralists and belief that there is a major force who controls everything, which they call Tumwi. This force is found n the sky, but can manifest as a rainbow, bird, basically through nature. They believe that the priests are the ones that communicates them with God. Some of the rites they undergo are the insertion of lip plates in women. Girls' lower lips are pierced at 15 and a large pottery or wooden disc, or plate is inserted. These are worn by unmarried women to dance, and by occasions they attract tourists and they earn some extra money. Males of the tribe perform a ceremonial dueling, male violence, to mark their identity.

As we can see tribes can be a really interesting topic of study. Seeing how they live and how different each one of these tribes act can be an awesome thing to research. Knowing about these different tribes and how their cultures work, how their beliefs difference from ours, what they belief is "beautiful" toward what we belief is beautiful can be a great thing to study in the different cultures. But even though with a lot of differences we are still, in some point the same, humans.

References:
Kayan people
Mursi people