Karo girls chat in the shade of the riverine forest that lines the banks of the Omo River. It is a tradition for girls to pierce a hole below the lower lip in which they place a thin piece of metal or a nail for decoration. The Karo are a small tribe living in three main villages along the lower reaches of the Omo River in southwest Ethiopia. The largest village, Duss, is home to almost half the population of around 3,500 people. Once solely agriculturalists, the people now keep livestock as well.They are Omotic people and speak a dialect of their larger and more powerful neighbours, the Hamar, from whom they originated in the distant past.