Heavy metal bracelets and anklets are also worn by Hamer women. They wear bead necklaces, iron coils around their arms and skins decorated with cowry shells. The iron twists around their necks are worn by only married or engaged women whilst young unmarried girls wear a metal plate in their hair. The women also mix animal fat with ochre and rub their hair to create coppery-colored twists.
If you also like to learn about costumes of other neighboring tribal groups found in the Omo valley, here I have few to say.
The Geleb people wear necklaces that are made from light-weight aluminum beads. The Surma, wear lip plates and ear plugs of wood or clay. The Bume girls adore themselves with elaborate bead and button decoration on leather with little dots to highlight their eyes and cheekbones. Young women of Gidole in central Gamo Gofa tip their hair with bamboo or horn ornaments. The Borena, usually the women, wear simple leather or cotton clothes and little jewellery whilst the girls with plaited hair and dozens of metal necklaces.
Hope this helps. If you also wish to visit the places, I would be glad to assist you and provide my services.
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]]>Eskinder replies:
I personally have falasha ethiopian jew friends who live in a village some 800km from Addis. The Falashas as some scholars believe, are descendants of the Tribe of Dan; one of the 12 lost tribes of Israel dispersed after the Babylonian exile in 586 BC.
Before the coming of Christianity, Judaism was for centuries the dominant religion of most of north-western Ethiopia. After the adoption of Christianity as Ethiopian state religion, the Falashas were continually persecuted as they refused to convert to Christianity.
Their land and properties were confiscated. Many of them became skilled craftsmen who also provided the labor for the construction and decoration of the castles.
From 1985 to 1991 over 25,000 Falashas were airlifted to Israel in two operations named Moses and Solomon.
Around 6km north of Gonder is their little village of wolleka. If you want to have first hand research and information about the Falashas and other parts of Ethiopia, I would be glad to assist you and provide the required services.
About the Apocrypha Books; the word Apocrypha as usually understood, refers to fourteen books which have been added to the Old Testament and held to be part of the sacred canon, particularly by the Roman Catholic Church and Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
Protestants generally do not include these in the Bible. The word literally has come to mean hidden or concealed. The Septuagint (LXX), the translation of the Old Testament into Greek made between 280B.C. and 180B.C. contained the apocryphal books. Jerome included them in his Latin translation of the Old Testament, called the Vulgate.
These books are not a part of the Hebrew bible. The reformers were largely responsible for eliminating the Apocrypha from the Bible, because they contain things which are inconsistent with Protestant doctrine (e.g. the doctrines of prayer for the dead, and intercession to the saints).
The following are the fourteen books which are in the apocrypha, sometimes scattered throughout the Old Testament, and sometimes printed at the end of the Old Testament: 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, The rest of Ester, The wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, with the Epistle of Jeremiah, The Song of the Three Holy Children, The History of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, The Prayer of Manasses, 1 Maccabees, and 2 Maccabees.
I hope this helps,
Eskinder.