Surma

The Surma, or Suri, are a cluster of Surmic-speaking Nilo-Saharan peoples, the Chai, Timaga and Baale, of the lower Omo country in south-western Ethiopia and the adjoining South Sudanese borderlands, kin to the Mursi and the Me'en. Their oral tradition tells that in the late 1700s and early 1800s they moved from the Boma Plateau and the Omo valley by way of the Akobo, absorbing the older inhabitants.

Agro-pastoralists who measure wealth in cattle, they grow sorghum and maize and move their herds south for dry-season grazing, when raiding and feuds with the Nyangatom and Toposa over cattle and pasture are most common.

Their villages are egalitarian, led only by ritual elders called komoru, while young men prove themselves in ceremonial stick duels, the saginé, and women traditionally wear clay lip plates and scarification as marks of beauty.