Bull Jumping Ceremony

I am encouraged to stay a third night based in Turmi to witness the legendary bull jumping ceremony. This one is Hamer, although this rite of passage is also staged for the Bena and Karo tribes.

I arrive around 2pm and the boy’s mother’s family and father’s family have gathered to join in the celebrations. 

 the young bull-jumper

The women have been drinking all day and certainly up for a party. They dance around with bells taped round their legs and ankles, and others blow small horns whilst recent successful jumpers, sit around and decorate each other with different natural paints. 

The men are goaded by the younger women who are regularly whipped with acacia branches. The welts have caused scars and several lacerations are bleeding. They taunt the men further and get switched further still. 

 whip me

 check out her welts

ouch!

It calms down a little in the heat until the cattle arrive on the scene.

The venue is now switched a further kilometre away to an open field. The jumper is placed on a goatskin, is given instructions and asked to select just 8 bulls from the 40 plus given. These are lined up in parallel, held by their tales by recent “jumpers”. The jumper strips out of his loin cloth and runs “tackle out” over the quadrupeds back. He stumbles on his third attempt, but completes a third run on his next run and voila – he is a man ready to take a wife (if he can afford it), and whip the women at the next Hamer bull run.

 

 I am charged Birr 300 to spectate (and take all the photos I want “complementary”) but I have to also pay a “guide” Birr 100 to “escort” me. Actually, it is worth every penny in comparison to visiting the Karo in Kotcha which is ridiculously overpriced.