Nuer tobacco pipe bowl
Other views of this artifact:
Accession Number:
1937.34.67
Country:
Sudan
Region:
[Southern Sudan]
Cultural Group:
Nuer
Date Made:
By 1936
Materials:
Pottery
Process:
Handbuilt , Fire-Hardened , Slipped , Decorated , Incised , Burnished
Dimensions:
L = 173, Bowl Ht = 69, bowl rim diam = 30, mouth diam = 24, max diam body = 60, stem diam = 28.5, stem rim diam = 24.3, stem mouth opening = 12; knob diam = 26.8 by 26 m [RTS 2/12/2004].
Weight:
252.6 g
Local Name:
tony
Other Owners:
Collected by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard during his last period of fieldwork amongst the Nuer between October and November 1936, where he worked amongst the Nuer Leek in the area west of the Nile [RTS 6/7/2004].
Field Collector:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
PRM Source:
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
Acquired:
Donated 1937
Collected Date:
October to November 1936
Description:
Pottery bowl from a tobacco pipe, hand made from a well levigated fabric with tiny mica inclusions, self slipped and fired buff with patches of orange and black sooting over the surface (Pantone 728C).
This appears to have been made in two parts, modelled separately, with the stem then being inserted into the side of the bowl to join them together.
It consists of a circular mouth with narrow, uneven, flat topped rim, circular in section, and a broad flat collar on the outer face, on top of a deep, baggy body with convex underside that has some finger-sized indentations across its surface.
A spherical knob has been added to one side, to serve as a pipe rest, while a cylindrical pipe stem runs from the opposite side of the bowl at right angles to it.
This has a thick, flat rim that slopes downwards to its outer edge.
Incised geometric decoration has been added to the surface of bowl and knob, and the whole object was then burnished, leaving vertical stroke marks along the length of the stem.
The rim collar has been decorated with incised crosshatching, applied at an oblique angle, while the body below has a single, irregular line running around the circumference, with 2 elongated semicircles pendant from it, filled with internal crosshatching, on opposite sides of the body, and between them, a crosshatched square on the surface directly above the pipe stem, and a long narrow crosshatched rectangle on the front of the bowl opposite this.
A similar crosshatched rectangle runs across the bowl underside.
The knob is decorated with 15 vertical lines, that run from its upper edge down to near the centre of its base; this knob has been tooled around its top edge to help delineate it from the bowl body.
The object is complete and intact.
It has a weight of 252.6 grams, and is 173 mm long.
The bowl rim has a diameter of 30 mm, with an internal mouth diameter of 24 mm; the bowl body is 60 mm wide, and 69 mm tall, while the stem has a body diameter of 28.5 mm and a rim diameter of 24.3 mm, with an opening 12 mm across.
The pipe rest knob measures 26.8 by 26 mm.
Collected by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard during his last period of fieldwork amongst the Nuer between October and November 1936, where he worked amongst the Nuer Leek in the area west of the Nile (see E.E. Evans-Pritchard, 1940, The Nuer ). The Nuer name for this object is tony.
A sketch of earlier styles of Nuer pipes is published in J. & K. Petherick, 1869, Travels in Central Africa and Explorations of the Western Nile Tributaries, Vol. I, p. 119. They described the pipe of a Nuer chief from the village of Aliab as follows: " He carried a pipe with a capacious bowl; the tube is hollowed, one and a half inches in diameter; it is crammed with thin fibres of bark, like coarse hemp, which, when thoroughly saturated with nicotine, is greedily chewed by the men and married women. As a mark of respect and friendship, the quid is passed from one to another…” (Petherick 1869, 420). Domville Fife also discusses the manufacture and use of Nuer pipes, as he observed it at the village of Hillet-el-Nuer in the 1920's: "The bowl is fashioned of clay and is fitted with a reed stem about 30 inches long, which has an immense mouthpiece made of calabash. Although tobacco is largely grown locally the smoking mixture of the Nuer is composed of the almost black leaves of the swamp variety of this plant, combined with a plentiful supply of charcoal and cow dung ... Both men and women smoke these curious pipes, and are frequently seen walking along supporting them with one hand while they do their work with the other" (C.W. Domville Fife, 1927, Savage Life in the Black Sudan, pp 161-162).
It seems to be quite common to find mica mixed in with Sudanese clays. Schweinfurth noted this was the case for Bongo pottery, which he suggested made their wares very brittle; he believed this mix to be naturally occurring and that the Bongo potters did not know how to remove it from their fabrics (G. Schweinfurth, 1873, In the Heart of Africa Volume I, p. 292).
For very similar pipe bowls, see 1937.34.66 (which has its stem and mouthpiece attached) and 1937.34.68, also from the Nuer.
This object is currently on display in the Court, case 35A.
Rachael Sparks 25/9/2005.
Collected by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard during his last period of fieldwork amongst the Nuer between October and November 1936, where he worked amongst the Nuer Leek in the area west of the Nile (see E.E. Evans-Pritchard, 1940, The Nuer ). The Nuer name for this object is tony.
A sketch of earlier styles of Nuer pipes is published in J. & K. Petherick, 1869, Travels in Central Africa and Explorations of the Western Nile Tributaries, Vol. I, p. 119. They described the pipe of a Nuer chief from the village of Aliab as follows: " He carried a pipe with a capacious bowl; the tube is hollowed, one and a half inches in diameter; it is crammed with thin fibres of bark, like coarse hemp, which, when thoroughly saturated with nicotine, is greedily chewed by the men and married women. As a mark of respect and friendship, the quid is passed from one to another…” (Petherick 1869, 420). Domville Fife also discusses the manufacture and use of Nuer pipes, as he observed it at the village of Hillet-el-Nuer in the 1920's: "The bowl is fashioned of clay and is fitted with a reed stem about 30 inches long, which has an immense mouthpiece made of calabash. Although tobacco is largely grown locally the smoking mixture of the Nuer is composed of the almost black leaves of the swamp variety of this plant, combined with a plentiful supply of charcoal and cow dung ... Both men and women smoke these curious pipes, and are frequently seen walking along supporting them with one hand while they do their work with the other" (C.W. Domville Fife, 1927, Savage Life in the Black Sudan, pp 161-162).
It seems to be quite common to find mica mixed in with Sudanese clays. Schweinfurth noted this was the case for Bongo pottery, which he suggested made their wares very brittle; he believed this mix to be naturally occurring and that the Bongo potters did not know how to remove it from their fabrics (G. Schweinfurth, 1873, In the Heart of Africa Volume I, p. 292).
For very similar pipe bowls, see 1937.34.66 (which has its stem and mouthpiece attached) and 1937.34.68, also from the Nuer.
This object is currently on display in the Court, case 35A.
Rachael Sparks 25/9/2005.
Primary Documentation:
Accession Book Entry
[p.
38, pencil in left column] 34 [ink]
E.E.
EVANS-PRITCHARD
, M.A., Exeter College.
Specimens collected by himself in the EASTERN SUDAN, vis: [addition in different pen] (Coll.
in 1936) [p.
41, pencil] 67, 68 [ink]
- [1 of] 2 Pottery pipe-bowls.
Card Catalogue Entry - There is no further information on the tribes catalogue card [RTS 23/7/2004].
Detailed Pipes [Unsorted] Card Catalogue entry - Description: Pipe bowl. Made of pottery light red in colour but considerably blackened in places, with large bulbous bowl and long tubular stem piece. The bowl has a comparatively small orifice, a small segmented knob in front, an ornamental band round rim and check pattern designs incised on it (on the sides two large ones bounded by curved lines) Length 17.3 cm Bowl height c 6.8 cm outer width of rim 3.1 cm People: Nuer tribe Locality: A-E Sudan Native name: Tony Collected by: E. Evans-Pritchard How acquired: dd E. Evans-Pritchard 1937 [Drawing].
Card Catalogue Entry - There is no further information on the tribes catalogue card [RTS 23/7/2004].
Detailed Pipes [Unsorted] Card Catalogue entry - Description: Pipe bowl. Made of pottery light red in colour but considerably blackened in places, with large bulbous bowl and long tubular stem piece. The bowl has a comparatively small orifice, a small segmented knob in front, an ornamental band round rim and check pattern designs incised on it (on the sides two large ones bounded by curved lines) Length 17.3 cm Bowl height c 6.8 cm outer width of rim 3.1 cm People: Nuer tribe Locality: A-E Sudan Native name: Tony Collected by: E. Evans-Pritchard How acquired: dd E. Evans-Pritchard 1937 [Drawing].
