As of now, the 230 countries in the world have a total population of about 7.6 billion people and more than 2,000 ethnic groups, and the Fulani are the fourth largest ethnic group in Africa, and one of the sub-tribes of their tribe, the "Vodabe Tribe", is known for its unique beauty, exquisite clothing and rich cultural ceremonies.
In the arid and semi-arid, tropical desert and savannah of the arid and semi-arid, tropical desert and savannah of the southern edge of africa's Sahara Desert, there is a group of nomadic herders and traders whose nomadic range extends from southern Niger, through northern Nigeria, to northeastern Cameroon, southwestern Chad and the western part of the Central African Republic, and this nomadic tribe is known as the Vodabe tribe.
Since ancient times, the Vodabe tribe has migrated back and forth over time, and when they were leaving, the Vodabe people put away their tents, put various items on the backs of camels and donkeys, drove their cattle, and migrated to another place where there was water and grass.
Maybe today you see them in one place, and tomorrow you may go again and you may pounce.
The Vodabe tribe is one of the standard cultural samples identified by 186 cultural anthropologists in the world, the tribe is relatively primitive, continuing some traditions of matriarchal society, the status of women in the tribe is much higher than that of men, women are responsible for working to support their families, holding financial power, and men are responsible for beauty.
The Vodabe tribe has few men and women, implements polygamous system, in the conjugal life, women have an absolute right to speak, unmarried women are allowed to have sex with anyone they like at any time, even if they are married, as long as they like the man they like, they can change men to go home.
The property of the family belongs to the woman, and when a woman grows old, she will give all the property items as a dowry to her daughter, the woman will live well in the tribe even if she is not married, and the man is only a helper for work and childbirth.
Here women will get tattoos on their bodies or faces, while men choose makeup, and they see themselves as the most beautiful people in the world.
The Vodaba people are naturally beautiful, and they are also happy to show their beauty, and they attach great importance to personal beauty and charm, all of which has to do with their tribal culture.
The first thing a young man of the Vodabe tribe does every morning is to wash and dress up in front of a small mirror, and he will not herd cattle without completing this fixed ritual every morning.
The cosmetics used by men are all pure natural, there are plants and minerals, and they use black pigments to draw a circle of eyeliner around the eyes to make their eyes look big and white. Braid your hair and wear beads, jewelry, and more.
It's just a daily routine, and when the annual Grevere-born season begins, men spend hours putting on makeup.
Because of the lack of men and women and the special culture, the status of men here is precarious, in order to solve the single problem and ensure that the wife will not empathize after marriage, so men pay more attention to dressing themselves.
At the end of the rainy season in September each year, the tribe gathers from scattered settlements to celebrate a festival called Gerewol, which is held for 7 days and 7 nights, one is to celebrate the end of the rainy season that brings a short green and fertile rainy season to the barren West African plains and pray for the arrival of the next rainy season, and the other is to conduct a man's beauty pageant for women to choose their favorite object.
The festival takes place for 7 days and 7 nights, and the men's beauty pageant is held on the last day, when they will dance all night and party until dawn.
Before the beauty pageant, men will spend hours dressing up and grooming themselves, tall figure, bright skin, long face, straight nose, thin lips, large white teeth, bright forehead, big eyes, long neck, slim jade hands are all criteria for beauty pageants.
Men will use black paint to draw eyeliner to highlight their big eyes, paint their faces with yellow paint, make their faces look slender, insert feathers to make themselves look taller, and use various dresses and modifications to make themselves meet the most beautiful standards.
The beauty pageants here do not go to the catwalk like the outside world, but dance, and jump for hours, which is also a manifestation of endurance.
When dancing, men will narrow their teeth and show their big white teeth to attract the attention of the girls. At this time, men, like males in animals courting females, try to show their charm.
The most beautiful men will be selected by the three women selected from the tribe, and when the three of them wave their hands to a man at the same time, the most beautiful men of this year will be produced, and the selected men have the right to choose the woman he likes.
Other unsuccessful men will continue to dance, expecting a woman to choose themselves, women who attend the dance must be in a state of not being pregnant, women who are interested in men will signal to men, both sides agree to go into the grove, such a relationship lasts for several hours, if they want to continue together, they will get married.
Even a married woman can attend a dance party, and if she has a crush on the man she likes, she can choose to have a night out, or she may abandon her original husband and marry the person she wants.
The end of the seven-day carnival means the end of the best season, and they continue to live their nomadic lives.
In the tribe, cattle are wealth, so they have to go through the grass, but they do not eat beef, daily eat millet, milk and cassava, etc., and the cattle will be used to trade in exchange for other supplies. Every morning after breakfast, the men would ride on camels to graze their cattle.
The reason why there is such a male and female custom in the tribe is for the continuation of the tribe, and having more children can offset the higher infant and child mortality rates.
At a very young age, the children of the tribe were arranged by their parents to marry, but after fulfilling their marital obligations, both men and women were promised to go their separate ways and go their separate ways, and the opportunity was the annual Gryvol Festival.
Most women who are leaving leave their husbands before they get pregnant because the children are owned by men. Children are seen as symbols of masculinity, wealth, and labor.
When a man is unable to have children, he will agree that his wife will date the tribal man in anticipation of having a child. Even men with children sometimes allow their wives to have children with beautiful men in the tribe in the hope of having more beautiful children.
Warber women don't wear makeup like men, just wear large earrings, and from an early age they will use a blade to scratch their faces and bodies, dye them black, and form blue-black tattoos to have more tattoos for beauty.
In the Vodabe tribe, women control the affairs of the family and economic power, more men and fewer women, no worries about no men, so they will simply dress themselves, and the matter of loving beauty will be handed over to men.
It can be seen from this that the economic base determines the status of the family.