The Maale people (also spelled Male; pronounced /ˈmɑːli/), are a small ethnic group of approximately 95,000 located in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region at the border between north and south Omo of Ethiopia.
[3] Many of the practices related to the women of the Maale have been documented by Thubauville (2010), including the differences between traditional and contemporary practices.
There are opposing scholarly interpretations of the role and significance of this.
Epprecht believes that they are male assigned at birth individuals who behave as women and also have sex with men.
[4] But he admits that the description by Donham (who had actually lived and worked among the Maale), is quite different, that the duty of an ashtime was to allow the king to have sex "protected from even the merest whiff of female sexuality at key moments in the ritual life of the nation".