These images are a tribute to the beauty and grace of the people of the Valley.

Photography by MATILDA TEMPERLEY

The tribes pictured in this slideshow, (the Mursi and their neighbours, the Suri), live in the remote OmoValley in southern Ethiopia. They, along with their other Surma neighbours, are under threat from the advance of western 'civilisation'. Here: a Mursiwoman with child.

When the photographer visited the region in 2009, she encountered this girl who didn't want to have a plate

The old traditions are gradually vanishing though. Tribal fashions such as lip plates and scarification are being supplanted by global fashions such as baseball caps, football shirts and, more sinisterly, the bearing of Kalashnikovs and the Chinese-made guns that flood all East Africa’s borders.

The men of the Suri tribe have a type of ritualised warfare: stick fighting. Men from different villages fight, according to rules laid down, and sometimes with referees. Sometimes the bouts end after a couple of hits, but they can also end in death. Guns are also used to settle disputes with blood feuds common.

The government’s stance in the face of criticism over Gibe III’s social and environmental impact is to accuse its detractors of ‘patronizing the national interests of Ethiopia and romanticizing traditional valley lifestyles’.

A Suri woman with a wooden plate

Mursi woman , Omo Valley

The cultural heritage appears fragile, threatened by the world encroaching upon the territory but the people, with their inherent capacity for transition, take incoming influences and fashion them into their own estimations.

The Omo valley is a crossroads of cultures and civilisations with many tribal groups surrounding the South Sudanese, Ethiopian and Kenyan borders. The inhabitants have developed their own unique styles of adornment to differentiate themselves from their neighbours, with whom they are often at war. The Mursi women, pictured, have their lower teeth removed and ceramic plates inserted that stretch the lips.

Suri woman and child

Similarly, this young Mursi woman wanted to keep her mouth the way it was, with no plate.. On the next visit however, both girls had succumbed to peer pressure and had the plates inserted, as per tradition.

The ceramic plates can be removed, pictured