Anthropology Artifacts Collection | Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections

Collection Overview

Title: Anthropology Artifacts Collection

ID: WC-Anth/Main

Extent: 0.0

Scope and Contents of the Materials

The anthropology artifacts collection contains a wide range of items that document the material culture from around the world and was received as gifts. The artifact descriptions were created from existing information created near the time of acquisition as well as research conducted by students.

Box and Folder Listing

Item 209: FG-13-10 -- [artifact name unknown]

Small circular, spool shaped lip plug (also called a lip plate, lip disc or labret) with embedded white beads. One of a set of three lip plugs.

References Cited: Allen, John L. and Audrey C. Shalinsky 2004 Student Atlas of Anthropology.

McGraw Hill, Guilford, CT Butt, Audrey n.d. East Central Africa Part IV: The Nilotes of the Anglo Egyptian Sudan and Uganda. Ethnographic Survey of Africa. International African Institute, London

Cerulli, Ernesta 1956 North Eastern Africa Part III: Peoples of South West Ethiopia and its Borderland. Ethnographic Survey of Africa. London: International African Institute.

Driberg, J.H 1939 A Note on the Classification of Half Hamites in East Africa. Man 39: 20 21.

Gordon, Raymond G., Jr., ed. 2006 Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Electronic document, http://www.ethnologue.com/, accessed September 11, 2006. Huntingford, G.W.B 1961 Distribution of Certain Culture Elements in East Africa. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 91(2): 251 295

Simpson, John, ed. 2006 Oxford English Dictionary Online edition. Oxford University Press, Electronic document. http://www.oed.com, accessed October 1st, 2006.

Turton, David 2004 Lip plates and 'the People Who Take Photographs': Uneasy Encounters Between Mursi and Tourists in Southern Ethiopia. Anthropology Today 20(3):3 8.

Wheaton College Museum Card File n.d. File Available in Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

Additional Information: African Art, Music & Cultural Resources 2006 The African Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Electronic Document, http://africa.wisc.edu/links/cultural.htm, accessed October 3, 2006. Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives n.d.. National Museum of African Art. Smithsonian Institute. Electronic Document, http://www2.unil.ch/gybn/Arts_Peuples/Ex Africa/Initiation/cadrinit.htm Geysbeek, Tim 15 September, 2006 SIM International Archives, Personal Correspondence.

Culture: Western Sudan (WCMCF)

Culture Area: East Africa

Date Acquired: [Unknown]

Dimensions: 3.2 cm diameter x 2.5 cm thick

Donor: [Unknown]

General Area of the World: Central Nilo Hamitic peoples including the Suri Surma Meken peoples, the Buma Marle of the Lower Omo River region, the Bodi of the West Sidama or Ometo groups and the Acholi.

Material: Medium hardness, medium colored wood with ceramic beads.

Outline of Cultural Materials Code: 300 Adornment, 301 Ornament, 304 Body Alterations, 322 Woodworking

Outline of World Cultures Code: [undetermined]

Use and Background: Lip plates in East Africa are worn both east and west of the Upper Nile river area, by people in the region of the Lower Omo River in Southwest Ethiopia, and also into Western Sudan and Northern Uganda. In this area of Africa, lip plates are predominantly a female form of ornamentation, although among the people of the Lower Omo lip plugs are common for both men and women. Plates may also be made of leather or clay and can reach a diameter of 12 to 15 cm and weigh almost 300 grams. When the plate is removed, a loose flap of skin remains and, among the Suri Surma Meken, with the exception of times of mourning, it is necessary to cover this skin with a hand or leaf so that a man or a woman's mother in law does not see it. There is much debate over the significance of lip plate wearing and it is possible that it has different meanings in the varying forms that it takes in each cultural group that utilizes them. Among the Surma, when a girl reaches puberty the incisions in her lip are made so that the plate may be fitted. Several of her teeth are also removed as a part of the initiation. Bodi women in South West Ethiopia begin to wear lip plugs once their first child is born. Two prominent assertions regarding the significance of the lip plate have included a correlation of plate size to amount of bride wealth, or the argument that the custom was instituted in order to deter slave traders from taking the women (e.g., Turton 2004). However, at least among the Mursi of the Suri Surma Meken group in Ethiopia, many of the girls have arranged marriage partners and set bride wealth sums before they begin to wear the lip plate. The second explanation has its origins in the colonial era and raises questions about the biases of those making the assertions at the time, and also regarding the significance of similar lip discs worn by other cultural groups around the world, including the Kayapo of Brazil (Turton 2004). The Mursi are some of the most well known for the wearing of lip plates. At the age of 15 or 16, an incision is made in a girl's lower lip by her mother or another woman in the village. Progressively larger plates are inserted, as often as once a day, at the discretion of the girl herself. When asked why she increases the size of the plate, the typical response of a Mursi woman is, "It is our custom" (Turton 2004). When considering the implications of the lip plate in these cultures, it is important to acknowledge the debate that has risen recently over tourism in this area. David Turton (2004) expresses many reservations regarding tourist activity, particularly to the Mursi, for the purpose of photographing these large lip plates. Mursi women are paid for posing, but Turton (2004) describes the photographing as perceived as a kind of predatory [act] by which they are captured and appropriated. The wearing of the lip plate is viewed is a powerful marker of Mursi identity (e.g. Huntingford 1961) to all of the Mursi people, and at the same time serves as a constant reminder that others see them as uncivilized (e.g. Huntingford 1961). It is believed that the practice of wearing a lip plate may soon be eliminated, at least in Mursi society, for powerful pressures, both direct and indirect, on Mursi women to give up the practice will undoubtedly prove irresistible (e.g. Huntingford 1961).