16/12/2025
UKULLE / HATSA (Hamar & Banna Tribe – Bull-Jumping Ceremony)
Ukulle (Hamar) or Hatsa (Banna) is a family-based ritual ceremony that marks a rite of passage from boyhood into manhood. In meaning, it is similar to the Jewish Bar Mitzvah a transition that grants social recognition and responsibility within the community.
This ceremony officially allows a young man to enter adulthood and receive full recognition as a male member of the community, with the right to participate in communal affairs, take responsibility, and later establish his own family.
The full responsibility lies with the family, especially the father, who decides when his son is ready to undergo the ritual. All family members take part in the preparations and organization. Ukulle/Hatsa is also the most costly ceremony a family will ever host. Preparations include large quantities of food, the contribution and slaughtering of cattle for feasting, food support from extended family members, communal meals, and the preparation of local drinks.
For these reasons, families carefully choose the timing of the ceremony. The most suitable period is usually right after the harvest season when food, honey, and other resources are abundant, and when pastoral families of the Lower Omo Valley experience less pressure from distant cattle herding and seasonal movement.
Importantly, this ritual is not optional. No Hamar or Banna man is fully recognized as a legitimate member of his tribal community unless he successfully completes the bull jumping ceremony. Without it, he cannot:
Be socially acknowledged as a man
Marry and establish his own household
Own property independently
Take full responsibility within the community
Although the ceremony places a heavy economic burden on the family especially on the father it cannot be avoided. Every family must eventually prepare and support their son through this......we paused we story by word ,and life as Lower Omo Valley Native Continues ....
From Omo Valley with Love
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