The people portrayed in the film are called Hamar. They dwell in the thorny scrubland of southwestern Ethiopia, about a hundred miles north of Lake Rudolph, Africa's great inland sea. They are isolated by some distant choice that now limits their movement and defines their condition. At least until recently, it has caused them to retain a highly traditional way of life.

Part of that tradition was the open, even flamboyant, acknowledgment of male supremacy. In their isolation, they seem to have refined this not uncommon principle of social organization - and personal relationship - to a remarkably pure state. Hamar men are masters and their women are slaves. The film is an attempt to disclose not only the activities of the Hamar, but also the effect on mood and behaviour, of a life governed by sexual inequality.