Additional information
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Traditional Tuareg Calabash
The Tuareg are a nomadic ethnic group living in the heart of the Sahara. They divide themselves into Kels — politically autonomous sub-tribal federations occupying distinct regions of their vast territory, which traverses the borders of Mali, Algeria and Niger. The Tuareg are ethnic Berbers with straight hair and fair skin but those living farther south have greater affinities in both appearance and sensibility to their sub-Saharan neighbors. This bowl comes from a southern group under the Iwellemmeden federation in western Niger. Such bowls are distinct to the southern Tuareg. Studies of the northern Kels make mention of other types of bowls with feet, thick rims and handles, but not these. Iwellemmeden bowls are a variety carved in near perfect hemispherical form from a single block of wood hollowed out to a thickness of less than 1/4″. I know of nowhere else in the world where desert dwellers took such enormous quantities of precious hardwood and reduced them to so little in terms of weight. A large number of these bowls, incised with geometrical patterns and occasionally Tifinagh lettering, were exported during the drought in the 1990s. They were all very old, many bearing intricate indigenous repairs. Once the run was over there were no more, probably because the large trees required for the raw material no longer existed along with the man hours and patience to do the work. In general such bowls are oily only on their exterior surfaces indicating they were not used for serving or preparing food. My understanding is that these carved bowls were made to to emulate the large calabashes of the neighboring Wodaabe. These wandering Fulani accumulate huge numbers of incised and hollowed out gourds which they pass along as bride wealth out of all proportion with their actual utility. Perhaps these painstakingly carved skeuomorphic marvels are a spectacular example of tribal one-upmanship but whatever the impetus, they represent an old tradition that has ended, probably forever. 14.5″ in diameter.
