Incredible!: Photos Of Ethiopia's Hamar Tribe Females Who Are Beaten With Canes And Scarred With Thorns To Prove Their Strength

Thick scars coloured dull red and black cover the backs of women belonging to Ethiopia's Hamar tribe, the legacy of an initiation rite that sees them beaten bloody.

No screaming is permitted by the men wielding the canes but the women don't care. Instead of fleeing, they beg the men to do it again and again until blood flows, dripping into the gritty red dust of the Omo River Valley.

Now the Hamar and their unique culture that merges the beautiful and the brutal in equal measure are the subject of a series of incredible photographs created by French lensman, Eric Lafforgue.

Lafforgue travelled to Ethiopia after spotting pictures of the Hamar in a vintage book and hopes his photos will provide a record of a culture under threat from encroaching modernity.

His striking images reveal the beauty of Hamar women in their orange ochre make-up and bright beads, their skin scarred into intricate patterns using thorns, resilient as they live a life that's precarious at best and brutal at worst.

But not everything about the Hamar is troubling. For the Hamar, cattle are everything, and for the men, they form a key part of the rite that turns them from boy to man.