Many of you wrote to me last summer when I posted a video (see below) from Hans Sylvester stunning photographs of the people who painted from the Surma River and the Mursi tribe in Southern Ethiopia. The image is a magical portal childhood fantasy and drama, lost world, unfiltered unfettered imagination and creativity. I find it hard to believe that there is no stylist and make-up artist of staging these fantasies camera shows-fashion-Brown face a beautiful and sunny bodies painted with abstract motifs in usually, red, yellow, green and white, and decorated with colorful headdresses of flowers, leaves, pods, sludge, fruit and feathers.
“The paintings of body is absolutely free, but they never repeat itself, and there is no underlying system. Each one incredible fresh. Techniques and expertise body decoration, with infinite variations, is studying at a very young age, his mother painting their baby. But teens who are devoted to this activity is most diligently. Some of them are very talented. They have a very real sense of color and form, while others can be awkward and need to start over. “
Inevitably, the tribe that was discovered by the outside world and be a touristic place, intensifying and changing the practice of body Painting. In one village tourism already has the Mursi foothold of strength. According To Sylvester:
“Then suddenly, at about 4x4s 10 PM, the natives are ready to welcome them, their accessories and sports body painted for the occasion. The event is somewhat surreal lasted until around noon, and then the tourists set off and the ‘ players ‘ paid in local currency … The money was soon converted to alcohol or weapons, two trade flourished. The whole business smells of tragedy. “