Australian filmamakers were shocked after they discovered a
20-year-old Ethiopian girl with probably the largest lip disk in the
world.
An Australian film crew was shooting a documentary series when they
spotted a young woman with probably the world’s largest lip disc in the
remote valleys of southern Ethiopia. Speaking to the woman with the hepl
of the local guides they discovered that her name is Ataye Eligidagne
and she is 20 years old.
The girl even let them to measure the lip disk, it has 59.5 cm in
circumference and 19.5 cm in diameter, it’s over twice the size of the
average disc. The previous record disc in the Guinness Book of World
Records was 15cm in diameter.
Cinematographer Abrahem Joffe, who led the film crew said, “I’m a big
reader of Guinness World Records and I figured it was out of the
ordinary, but you know you’ve found something special when the locals
are amazed.”
Lip discs are a long-running tradition amongst the Surma woman of the
lower Omo Rover valley in Ethiopia. Piercing and lip plates are a
strong part of their culture. At the point of puberty most women have
their bottom teeth removed in order to get their lower lip pierced.
Once the lip is pierced, it is then stretched and a lip plate is then placed in the hole of the piercing. Having a lip plate is a sign of beauty that also helps a young woman to attract a husband as well as a dowry for the family of the wife – the bigger the plate, the more dowry the woman is worth.
Ataye Eligidagne, 20, wears the largest clay lip disc in the world
The procedure of preparing to wear the discs, which also involves knocking out the bottom two teeth, is done at the age of 15-18
In
recent times, the Ethiopian government has taken measures to ban the
discs, and the frequency amongst the younger generations is reportedly
dwindling
Eligidagne,
who has been stretching her lips for three years since the initial
piercing, said it was not painful at all and there weren’t any adverse
affects from wearing the disc
Once the lip is pierced, it is then stretched and a lip plate is then placed in the hole of the piercing. Having a lip plate is a sign of beauty that also helps a young woman to attract a husband as well as a dowry for the family of the wife – the bigger the plate, the more dowry the woman is worth.
Post a Comment Blogger Facebook