The magazine of the photo-essay
September/October 2022 issue
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Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
Tradition of the Hamer tribes, the bull jumping ceremony is a rite of passage in Ethiopia's Omo Valley. It represents a life-
changing event for the young man who passes from boyhood into adulthood. A Hamer man comes of age by leaping
over a line of cattle. These ceremonies take place after the harvests and they grant the men the rights to marry, own
cattle, and have children. The tribes have then several days of feasting and drinking sorghum beer.
On the afternoon of the leap, the man's female relatives demand to be whipped as part of the ceremony, to prove their
love for the men of their clans. The girls go out to meet the Maza's, the ones who will whip them – a group of men who
have already leapt across the cattle, and live apart from the rest of the tribe, moving from ceremony to ceremony.
There are around 45,000 Hamer people living in the Omo Valley, near Ethiopia's border with Kenya. They are largely
pastoralists, so their culture places a high value on cattle. The land isn't owned by individuals, it's free for cultivation and
grazing. The Hamer move on when the land is exhausted.
On the morning of the «Bull jumping» ceremony, members of the tribe are collecting blood from one of their bulls. They
offer it to drink to their guests before starting the festivities
The whippers running the ceremonies are called «maza's». Maza's are single men who have already performed the bull
jumping. They are then hired to whip the women during the ceremony. They earn goats and money as a salary. They will
whip all the jumper's female relatives except his mother.
The members of the tribe gather in the village in the morning. They drink blood freshly out of the bull in a huge calabash
and pass it to each other as a welcome mark.
The mother of the jumper to become a man (called «Ukuli») is walking around in the bush. She will guide the women of
the clan and push them to get whipped more and more.
A young girl is watching the beginning of the ceremony with her little brother.
Hamer communities across the whole Omo Valley in South-Western Ethiopia gather for these events.
A woman faces the maza's, taunting him, looking at him right in the eye and begging him to whip her more and more.
The young women of the Ukuli family come to the ceremony highly decorated, their hair and bodies covered with butter.
They ecstatically dance, sing and blow horns in circles for 3-4 hours before the ceremony.
The Hamer women smear their skin and tightly braid their hair with a mixture of
ocre and butter.
The Maza's clean themselves and put on adornments before going to gather the flocks for the jumping ceremony, that
will take place later in the afternoon.
A mother stays a few minutes away from the crowd to breastfeed her child.
Women run here and there to gather the bulls for jumping.
The teenage bull jumper stares silently into the distance contemplating the task ahead. If he manages to run across the
backs of a line of cattle, he becomes known as a «maza» («accomplished one») and is entitled to take the first of several
brides.
The teenage bull jumper stares silently into the distance contemplating the task ahead. If he manages to run across the
backs of a line of cattle, he becomes known as a «maza» («accomplished one») and is entitled to take the first of several
brides.
