African Lip
Plugs - Lip Plates
Carol Kaufmann - South African National Gallery
These images depict
African lip plugs, or labrets, which were in
fashion prior to European contact in Africa.
A lip plate, also known as a
lip plug or lip disc, is a form of body modification. The term labret (pronounced LAY-bret) denotes
all kinds of pierced lip ornaments, including plates and plugs.
In Africa, a lower lip plate is usually combined with the excision of the
two lower front teeth, sometimes all four. Among the Sara people, (Lobi) a
plate is also inserted into the upper lip. Other tribes, such as the
Makonde, wear a plate in the upper lip only. In many older sources it is
reported that the plate's size is a sign of social or economical importance.
However, because of natural mechanical attributes of human skin, it seems
that the plate's size often just depends on the stage of stretching of the
lip.
The original purpose may
have been to deform, affording women a sort of protection from Arab slavers.
David Livingstone asked a chief the reason for them and in surprise the chief
answered; for beauty! They are the only beautiful things women have. Men have
beards, women have none. What kind of person would she be without Pelele? She
would not be a woman at all.
Sometime after birth, mothers would pierce a
child’s lip with a thorn. The holes were enlarged with stalks of grass until
they were about two centimeters in diameter and large enough to insert a plug.
Increasingly larger discs were
inserted into a pierced hole in either the upper or
lower lip, or both, thereby stretching it.
Lip tissue would elongate and conform to
the shape of the implanted objects.
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A variety of materials were used in the
manufacture of lip plugs, which included wood, ivory, clay, bone, shiny metal,
shell and sometimes crystal. They could be found in round or
trapezoid shapes of various sizes. There were carved rings, as well as simple
balls fitted with a flat base which were inserted to the lower
lip.
Depending on the tribe, both
men and women wore lip plugs in East, Central and West Africa.
Large sized plugs afforded greater status to the
wearer. In southern Chad , lip plugs might exceed 6 inches.
Photograph by Casimir Zagourski -
Between 1924 - 1941
More
here including Scarification - Piercing -
Stretching - Filing - Deforming - Mutilation
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