- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Flywhisk of dark hair with leather covered wooden handle and leather loop. A copper alloy ring is around the top of the handle. [MJD 10/08/2009]
- Long description
- Flywhisk of dark hair with leather covered wooden handle and leather loop. A copper alloy ring is around the top of the handle. [MJD 10/08/2009] Eland, wildebeest and giraffe hair is used in flywhisks such as this. Still being used today in most of the ceremonies. [ThW [Living Cultures Project] 17/3/2021]
- Geographical reference
- Cultural groups
- Maasai
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1895
- Date collected
- 1895
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 12/1904 Found unentered: 10/08/2009
- Materials and processes
- Material Animal Leather Skin, Material Animal Hair, Material Copper Alloy Metal, Material Wood Plant, Process Bound, Process Stitched, Process Carved
- Dimensions
- Width: max 130 mm, Length: max 660 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1904.34.49
- Research and responses
'Eland, wildebeest and giraffe hair is used in flywhisks such as this. Still being used today in most of the ceremonies.' The information used to describe this object has been reviewed through a process of consultation with Maasai representatives and community elders as part of The Maasai Living Cultures Project. Living Cultures started in 2017 and is a partnership between Maasai representatives from Tanzania and Kenya, the Pitt Rivers Museum and InsightShare, an Oxford-based NGO. The project is working to represent the history and narratives behind artefacts held in museum collections. Over the course of three years (2017, 2018, 2020) Maasai delegates have visited the museum to discuss how their culture is represented and how the Museum speaks about Maasai communities in its displays, databases, and education programmes. [ThW [Living Cultures Project] 16/3/2021]
Further items to explore
1886.1.1370Fly whisk of coconut fibre with a wooden handle. [JU 12/06/2012]1886.1.1370
1886.1.395Flywhisk of grass with painted wooden handle. [MJD 13/08/2009]1886.1.395
1900.32.4String of tubular coral beads, probably from a ceremonial flywhisk.1900.32.4
1966.16.54Flywhisk. Made of a varnished wooden shaft and a section of porcupine hair for the whisk. Perforated at the end of the shaft with a string wrist loop through the end. The opposite end of the shaft is bound with string with the hair knotted around it.1966.16.54