Ethiopia – The Hamer Ritual

Almost everyday brings its share of adventure, but not all are equal.

Once in a while, you get that true feeling of discovery.

You’re a bit scared, a bit excited, and you can feel the adrenaline rushing through your body.

That’s exactly what was happening to me as we were walking down the dry bed of the river in a remote corner of Southern Ethiopia.

Marc, our local guide Azucar, the Hamer policeman we had picked up at the local market and I had been driving off road and walking for almost 3 hours.

We were trying to find the location of the Hamer bull jumping ceremony.

Everything started a few hours before. We had been driving for a couple days now and sleeping in the most basic accomodations in order to reach one of the few remaining area of Africa that has not been developped (although the Chinese are now building some new roads there too – hurry up before it’s too late).

Along the way we stopped a few times to meet local tribes, even corrupting some of them with my Ipod.

And testing the local drink.

The Hamer are one of these tribes who – despite of daily contacts with modernism – have sticked to their traditions.

We first met many of them at the local Hamer market.

I had brought my portable printer so we could exchange pictures (digital for us, printed for them) and facilitate the interactions. Distributing free pictures, we soon became hugely popular and almost had to run away…

One of these Hamer traditions is called the Bull jumping and is described as a ritual to celebrate the passage to manhood and the readiness to get married. In order to prove this readiness, the man has to jump 4 times over a row of about 7 bulls and cows. This happens after the local women have been whipped for hours in a demonstration of their proud and love for the courageous man. Some of these women are not older than 8 or 9 years old.

This is not for the faint of heart. You may or may not agree with this tradition (some human rights association are trying to stop it) but as a privileged guest, you must obey by the rules.

It did not take long for the Hamer to realize that they can generate some money by “inviting” tourists to come and take pictures in exchange of nice pesos. And it took even less time for a couple local tour operators to start bringing Land Cruiser full of Spanish and Italians to the ceremony.

We saw about 10 of them at the market. Marc and I did not want to join them and see a diluted version of the event.

So with the help of the local policeman and our guide, we ended up in a remote area where we were the only 2 foreigners.

After parking the truck after the trail had vanished, we had to walk down the river for about 40 minutes to eventually see our first sign of life. It became quickly clear that we were entering a whole new world – almost a different planet.

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We stayed put for a while, exchanging signs with some people sitting near by on the rocks. From there we could watch everyone getting excited, getting dressed, a group of about 20 women practicing their songs and the men sitting and discussing.

Eventually we were invited to paint our faces for the event and about 30 minutes later we started walking toward the site of the ceremony.
We were allowed to bring camcorder and camera.

I gave the camcorder to the local guide – a proven strategy.
My experience has shown that local people are much less disturbed when the person shooting is not a foreigner.

The whole experience was surreal. Line of women were passing us singing and shooting, their back still bleeding from the fresh lashes they had just submitted themselves to.

The site of the ceremony was itself worth the hike. It was an open space on the top of the hill from where you had a 360 view of the surrounding plains and hills, with not one human being or construction in sight.

For the next hour or so, things seem completely unreal.
On one side, a group of women singing, sitting, discussing.
Some of them would stand up and start haggling some local guru, asking to be whipped.

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Then one other side, a group of elderly chatting together.
In the center, the men are gathering the cows and getting everything ready for the actual jump.

One of the steps involves making sure the candidate is not too nervous…missing and falling bring a lifetime of shame and humiliation on the participant and his family, so much that the last time it happened the poor guy almost got killed by his father and was kicked away from his village. Talk about social pressure.

Eventually the activity started and things happened very quickly.

Luckily for him (and for us, seeing the number of guns around here), the guy succeeded in his mission.

From there on, they left for the village to celebrate for the rest of the night.

For us, it was time to get back on the road and drive away – our next adventure was awaiting…