Body Decoration and Clothing

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Many of the ethnic groups decorate their body by painting body. Painting produced locally from clay and mixed with other pigments extracted from plants, locally available vegetable pigments on face, chest, arms, legs etc are also common clothing of the lower omo people is simple and effective a short wrap around toga, enhanced with iron rings and other craft jewelry. The women walk bare breasted, wearing a simple short skirt made for goat skin lather, the hems elaborately decorated with metal works.

Hairstyles, however, are more elaborate, fashioned with razor sharp knives and adorned with a skull- cap of red mud. Hammer women wear their hair in dense ring lets smeared with mud and clarified butter and topped off with head-dress featuring oblongs of gleaming aluminum and beaten tin plates. Hammer Dassenches, Nyangatom and Kara men form a ridge of plaited hair and clay to hold their hair feathered headwear in place.

Hair style among the Halaba

The Halaba children and young boys and girls have a special hair style. Children’s hair style, called goto in Halaba, is worn with most of the hair shaven with only a part left near the forehead. Goto is a hair of young boys while young Halaba girls wear their hair in a style known as guragema. In this style, a girl shaves her hair off leaving a stretch from ear to ear in a line. Quselo is when children shave their off entirely. Boys who have under gone recent circumcision adopt another hair style called sigga. It is also the hair style of unmarried Halaba girls. The hair style of young women anticipating their weeding day is called beguta. Women’s hair is decorated with corals, button and other beads. Hair style is a living culture in Halaba.

Halaba hair styles reflect culture and in this case, they illustrate different aspects of Halaba children. Besides it holds social importance for the practitioners.

Hairstyles among the Siltte

The Siltte women use different kinds of hairstyles and each style demonstrates the age and marital status of a woman. One of the styles is called Duffarcho, when the hair is completely shaved off and only a few long hairs remain at the crown of the head. Children under five years old wear this style.

Kucha is another hairstyle which with a few stripes of hair stretched from the crown of the head to the nape of the neck, with the rest of the hair shaved. This kind of hairstyle is common for young girls between 5-12 years old and children around this age also wear white cotton cloth, and a nicely decorated necklace, locally made from variety old keys. Kucha hair style is an indication of a transition from childhood to adulthood and a readiness for engagement. However engagement and marriage are forbidden while the girls’ hairstyles are still kucha.

Sija is another hairstyle in which the hair is completely made of strips without shaving any part off. It signifies that a young girl is ready for marriage. The young girl will continue to wear this style until she is married.

Kummenta is a hairstyle with full strips and the center decorated with small leather and coral pieces. A woman usually wears this style in the period of child delivery.