Tanzanian Herbalist’s Staff

This ex William Brill collection staff is erroneously identified in “Shangaa, Art of Tanzania” as Gogo. Blame for the error lies with my own earlier misidentification. The staff features a mature, heterosexual couple. The much larger female, with pendulous breasts and short plaited hair, holds aloft a serpent- almost certainly a python- which in turn insinuates itself around her arm and body. Her companion pointedly faces the opposite direction, drawing contentedly on a pipe. In contrast to his serenity her face is contorted with anxiety. Gourd pipes of the form rendered in this carving are found from the Zambezi Valley up through northern Zambia and into parts of Tanzania and eastern Congo. The Gogo of Tanzania are known for calabash pipes but they use a distinctly different arrangement of pipe bowl and gourd. According to Gary Van Wyck both the Nyamwezi and Sukuma Snake and Porcupine Societies revere the python as a medium of ancestral spirits. Dancing with and wrangling snakes are both common practices among society members. The style of this highly original and complex carving appears to be Nyamwezi. My current interpretation is that it was the healing staff of a healer, likely to be a member of the Snake Society, among whose tasks was to attend to individuals suffering from snake bite through rites that included the administration of traditional medicines. The male figure engenders calm and reflection while the female figure, perhaps a representation of the healer herself, and embodying her age, intensity, and knowledge appeals to the ancestral spirits through the serpent-medium. 32″ tall.

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