To Wear, or Not to Wear: Symbolism and Technology of Lip-Plates in Mursi (Ethiopia) and Mebêngôkre (Brazil)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Body Modification: Examples and Explanations" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This chapter offers a comparative look at the labrets of the Mebêngôkre (Brazil) and Mursi (Ethiopia) with a special emphasis on how lip-plates are made, worn, valued, and evaluated at a normative level. By normative, we mean the historical, technical, symbolic, and discursive ways in which such practices are understood by the Mursi and Mebêngôkre in question, but also how normative views clash with those of outsiders, and/or have lost their symbolic significance for insiders who are either abandoning the traditional practice of wearing the labret, or whose reason for wearing it has changed. Ethiopian authorities, for example, tend to regard certain bodily practices, like the pottery lip-plate, as a “harmful,” “backward,” and coercive practice. While an increasing number of Mursi girls and women are abandoning the practice, some Mursi still view the wearing of labrets as a way to freely express womanhood. Young Mebêngôkre men no longer wear the lip-plate, which is said to make enunciation in Portuguese difficult, but piercing the lower lip is still practiced on infant boys to develop oratory.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Body Modification: Examples and Explanations   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36273.0