A Karo elder surveys the settlement's sorghum fields along the banks of the Omo River, having just returned from a morning's work in the gardens. Sorghum is a tropical drought-resistant millet-like cereal grain that can be processed in a variety of ways, including fermentation into a juice or type of sorghum beer.
This Kara (Karo) settlement is set high on the east bank of the river in a remote corner of southwestern Ethiopia. The Nyangatom (past enemies, current allies) are established on other side of river. The river curls south and carves a course through the volcanic-rock floor of the Great Rift Valley for another 50-60 kilometres before pouring into Lake Turkana at the Kenyan border.
The clay hairbun with ostrich feathers signifies bravery and the killing of an enemy or a dangerous wild animal. This Kara elder earned high status in the community, in part, for having killed a lion many years ago.
Spears and other traditional weapons in the region were replaced with automatic rifles in the 1980s when they became more readily accessible during the decades-long civil war in neighbouring Sudan. Automatic weapons in circulation in the Horn today are also accessible through other channels, including the flow of small arms and ammunition from the longstanding wars across the border in Somalia and nearby northern Uganda. SKS and AK-47 assault rifles were easily available, relatively cheap and easy to use. Large numbers of automatic weapons were also imported from the USSR to Communist allies around the world during the Cold War, including Ethiopia.
SKS semi-automatic Russian-made rifles like the one in this photograph was a precursor to the AK-47 and were widely available after the fall of the Derg, the Communist military junta that ruled Ethiopia under Mengistu Haile Mariam from 1974 to 1987. The consequent disbanding of the army and police force likely produced a flood of automatic weapons on the market. They became accessible in part through established tribal links with arms dealers in the Ethiopian highlands further to the east of the Omo Basin and elsewhere.
Peoples of the Lower Omo Valley on Flickriver 