- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Leather cushion. Upper surface made of red leather and decorated with green and red trapezoid shaped leather decoration and leather fringing. [SM (Verve) 06/03/2014]
- Long description
- Leather cushion. Upper surface made of red leather and decorated with green and red trapezoid shaped leather decoration and leather fringing. The green leather decoration has been decoratively perforated and stitched to the main body of the object. The red trapezoid leather decoration is stitched to the ends of the object. This is decorated with linear patterns added in black pigment. The black leather fringes are attached between the red trapezoid shaped decoration. The underside of the object is made from stitched red and tan leather with triangular green leather decorations. The underside is also decorated with linear designs in black pigment. The object has local repairs. An oval shaped red leather patch has been stitched on with ?leather thongs and two sections have also been stitched together. [SM (Verve) 06/03/2014]
- Geographical reference
- Western Sudan Northern Darfur
- Cultural groups
- Tuareg Berber
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1934-1935
- Date collected
- By 1934 - 1935
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1945
- Materials and processes
- Material Animal Leather Skin, Material Pigment, Process Repaired (local), Process Stitched, Process Painted, Process Perforated, Process Dyed
- Dimensions
- Length: max 1081 mm incl. fringe, Width: max 545 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1945.9.82
- Research and responses
These three cushions (1945.9.80, 1945.9.81, 1945.9.82) are presumably examples of Tuareg saddle cushions, or sabara. Traditionally made by women smiths, or tinadan, they are used by women on palanquins. For a brief account, see 'Tuareg', by Kristyne Loughran, in Volume 31 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner (London: Macmillan, 1996), pp. 404-408. Loughran writes (page 407): 'There are two styles of Tuareg cushions. Saddle cushions (sabara) are elongated rectangles with elaborate decorations used by women on palanquins...'. See also 'The Stuff of Life: Tent, Food, Weapons', by Kristyne Loughran, in Art of Being Tuareg: Sahara Nomads in a Modern World, edited by Thomas K. Seligman and Kristyne Loughran (Los Angeles: Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University / UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 2006), pp. 90-91. A more elaborate, but basically similar, example in the collection of the Musée d'Ethnographie, Neuchâtel (48.2.56) is illustrated as figure D.23 on page 101 of Art of Being Tuareg. In the caption, on page 100, the 'local' name is given as adafor, but this seems to be the term for the other, round type of Tuareg cushion. [JC 21 8 2009]
For a brief account of the collections donated to the PRM by Wilfred Thiesiger, see 'An Incidental Collection: Objects Donated by Wilfred Thesiger to the Pitt Rivers Museum', by Jeremy Coote, in Wilfred Thesiger in Africa, edited by Christopher Morton and Philip N. Grover (London: Harper Press, 2010), pp. 116-26. [JC 21 12 2010]
- Associated publications
- Illustrated in colour as figure 57 on page 120 of 'An Incidental Collection: Objects Donated by Wilfred Thesiger to the Pitt Rivers Museum', by Jeremy Coote, in Wilfred Thesiger in Africa, edited by Christopher Morton and Philip N. Grover (London: Harper Press, 2010), pp. 116-26. Caption (same page) reads: 'Fig. 57 Tuareg woman's saddle cushion made of leather; 890 mm long. One of a number purchased by Thesiger from Tuareg refugees settled in Northern Darfur.' [FC 16/06/2010; JC 21 12 2010]
Search terms: Transport and Travel, Animal Gear, Cushion, Saddle