Heading south along the fault zone of the Great Rift Valley, there is an Omo Trough surrounded by three rivers. The altitude here gradually reaches 500 meters from 2800 meters, or even 50 meters, the temperature gradually becomes hot from cool, and people here wear very little clothing, or do not wear clothes at all when it is hottest.
The Omo River nestles in the Omo Trough, guarding next to the Ommo Trough, it is like a dividing line between modern society and primitive tribes, across the Omo River, the network, electricity and other modern elements have disappeared, making people feel like they are in a primeval forest.
The Omosa Valley is the last wilderness in Africa and is still home to 24 primitive tribal races and about 500,000 tribal dwellers. Each tribe maintains a unique way of life for thousands of years, inheriting their various traditional ethnic cultures, living as nomadic herders, and also growing some corn and sorghum. There are Christians baptizing their newborn babies, there are early tribes that declare their coming of age by circumcision tattoos, and there are Suri tribes that win wives through a fight. Today, let's walk into the traditional folk custom of the Suri tribe - Dongga fighting!
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, or Ethiopia for short. Ethiopia is located in the Horn of East Africa in northeast Africa, bordering Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, and Eritrea to the north. It covers an area of 1 10 square kilometers, of which the plateau area accounts for 2/3, with an average altitude of nearly 3000 meters, and is known as the "roof of Africa". There are more than 80 ethnic groups in Ethiopia, which speak more than 80 different languages.
Ethiopia, which means "the land inhabited by the sun-tanned people" in ancient Greek, is the birthplace of mankind, with a history of more than 3,000 years of civilization, and once created the glorious civilization of the Blue Nile Valley. Ethiopia is a country rich in tourism resources, with many cultural relics and wildlife parks. The Great Rift Valley in the middle of the plateau is complex and varied, sometimes with peaks and mountains; Sometimes the canyon is deep and the lake is beautiful.
What is it?
Donga, or stick fighting, is a ritual performed by the people of the Suri tribe after each harvest, held only once a year. Once, each local village sends their most powerful male warriors to the site of the battle, and the winner brings honor to the village. It combined combat and ritual with the aim of getting the young men of the tribe used to being injured, used to bleeding and strengthening their physique – because their chiefs thought it would come in handy when there was war with other tribes.
The process of Toga stick fighting
Before a formal stick battle, the tribesmen would use a special arrow to cut a small opening in the carotid artery of a cow, and then the warriors would try to drink two liters of blood, because the cow was a cherished animal in the Suri tribe, and they believed that the blood of the cow was rich in vitamins and nutrients that would enhance their strength in battle. But the result is often that few people can drink such salty fresh cow blood, and most people will eventually spit it out.
After completing the blood drinking ceremony, the warriors would go to the river to bathe and then paint various symbols on their bodies with white clay as decorations.
A warrior who paints his body with white clay
This was followed by intense stick battles, which were one-on-one, with the strongest warriors from different villages, and about 20-30 warriors from each side coming to participate in the stick fight.
Warriors armed with long sticks and participating in stick battles
The warriors would arrive at the agreed secret site with the villagers who came to watch the battle, where they would continue this ancient war ritual after the government banned sticks. The villagers carried their strong warriors on their shoulders and sang while shouting, "I am a hero, who will fight with me?" "Then there will be people to fight, and the warriors will wear some brightly colored headdresses and armor made of plants, which will also provide them with some protection."
The warriors put on their homemade armor and prepared to play
Stick fighting, as the name suggests, is fighting with sticks. When the battle began, the warriors on the field began to fight with wooden sticks about 1 meter long and medium thickness, as well as protective gear made with thick ropes and branches. The sound of whistles and sticks hitting each other, as well as the cheers and commotions of the crowd, intertwined, hovering over Omo Canyon.
Warriors in battle
The Tonga stick fight was bloody
Maybe you have the impression that the stick fight is very harmless, even like a family, but in fact, from the opening video you can see how cruel the real Donga stick fight is, the warriors are fighting for the glory of the whole village, so every blow is desperate to attack the other side' key points. Even the most basic sticks can exert great lethality.
A warrior wounded in a stick battle
You can easily find marks of blunt wounds on the bodies and heads of warriors. The smell of blood mixed with dust also pervaded the entire venue. War can leave scars on many participants, but in their tribal cultures, scratches on their bodies are a symbol of beauty. The result of a battle is often a victory for one person accompanied by the injury or death of the other. If a warrior is wounded, he will not receive any compensation, and if a warrior dies, his family will receive 20 heads of cattle or a young girl as compensation — yes, primitive tribal traditions always equate human life with material.
One's victory is accompanied by the other's injury or even death
Dongga stick fighting is also a courtship ritual
Tonga stick battles attract the prettiest girls in the area, and the winners can often choose a girl from the crowd as their wife, and after victory, they point the sticks they use during the battle to point at the girl they like. If the girl agrees, she will hang her necklace on the stick that the winner uses to fight. Of course, women have the right to refuse, but they usually don't, because in their tribal culture, the warriors who won the Tonga stick battle enjoyed a high reputation and status in this village and other villages, and were called heroes. So even the selection of girls is considered a capital to be proud of.
The chosen girl hangs the necklace from the winner's stick
Photography is not permitted without permission
As one of the cultural phenomena of primitive tribes, Tonga stick fighting attracts many photography enthusiasts and people interested in tribal culture, but for the protection of traditional rituals, general shooting is not allowed. Most of the few surviving images and videos are from Xavier Gil Tabios, a 62-year-old photographer in Barcelona, Spain, who traveled to Ethiopia's Omo Valley in early January 2021 and witnessed the traditional ritual of tribal youth fighting each other with sticks. He persuaded the chief, who was also the winner of two Donga stick battles, to leave these images.
The recent advent of guns has greatly undermined the fairness of Tonga stick fighting, and this ancient tradition is undergoing a fierce shock, but in the face of the impact of modern civilization and the Ethiopian government's upcoming exploitation of the region's abundant hydropower resources, how long will these ancient traditions and customs be maintained?
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