While Karo men dance, they place their automatic rifles in a stack close at hand. Almost every man owns a gun - usually an AK 47 assault rifle - and keeps spare ammunition in a cartridge belt around his waist. Fights with neighbouring tribes over grazing rights and fertile agricultural land are not unusual. 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