Tobacco pipe made from a two piece bamboo stem [.2], bound with string, with a decorated pottery pipe bowl [.1] fitted onto the end and secured with string [RTS 21/10/2004].

Collection type: Object
Description: Tobacco pipe made from a two piece bamboo stem [.2], bound with string, with a decorated pottery pipe bowl [.1] fitted onto the end and secured with string [RTS 21/10/2004].
Long description: Tobacco pipe consisting of a bamboo stem [.2] fitted with a pottery pipe bowl [.1]. The stem has been made in 2 pieces, each cut from a length of hollow, segmented yellow bamboo (Pantone 7510C). The smaller piece has a diameter of 8 mm and an opening through it that is 4.5 mm wide. This has been cut flat across the top, and inserted into the upper end of a longer piece of bamboo, with a diameter of 14.3 mm, and an opening 10 mm wide. Small slivers of bamboo have been jammed around the junction of the two sections to make the join secure, and a piece of twisted buff coloured string (Pantone 7506C), possibly cotton yarn, has been bound around the body just below to prevent this area splitting, with the loose end of the string tucked under the binding to secure it. The sides of the lower end of this second piece of wood have been shaved for a 27 mm long section, to allow this part to fit snugly into the ceramic bowl. The bowl itself has been hand made from a well levigated clay with numerous small mica inclusions, fired a dark brown throughout (Pantone black 7C). The upper part of this is cylindrical, with a thickened lug projecting from one side; this has been vertically pierced. The body narrows below, ending in a slightly convex and worn base, with the bowl section extending out from the side of the upper part at an acute angle; this flares out to its mouth, which has a narrow flat-topped rim. The exterior has been decorated with bands of crosshatching. A wide band runs around three sides of the upper bowl stem - with the area beneath the lug and around the base left plain - and 4 vertical bands run up the sides of the lower bowl body, with undecorated areas between, the whole framed at the top by a single narrow crosshatched band that runs around the circumference directly below the rim. Sooting is present on the bowl interior. A length of twisted fibre string has been passed through the pierced lug, secured by a knot at its base, then passed up through the hole and across to the bamboo body of the pipe, where the end has been wound around and tied off in a knot. The string is long enough to allow the pipe bowl to be fitted over the stem end; it serves as a safety cord, so that the bowl will not be lost if it comes away from the stem. The pipe is complete as a whole, although the bottom of the bowl is worn; the incised decoration contains some white and pinkish coloured pigment, but this appears random and is probably accidental rather than being added deliberately. It has a combined weight of 73.6 grams, and a total length of 560 mm. The bamboo stem by itself has a length of 510 mm, with the wider piece being 412 mm long; the pottery bowl is 81 mm long, 25 mm wide at the top of its stem, with an opening of 17 mm, and 44 mm wide at the top of the bowl rim, with an opening of 34 mm [RTS 21/10/2004].
Geographical reference: South Sudan
Africa > Eastern Africa > South Sudan; Bahr el Jebel Gondokoro
Cultural groups: Bari (Nilotic)
Person: Field collector William Leonard Stevenson Loat; PRM source William Leonard Stevenson Loat
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1903
Date collected: March 1902
Acquisition information: Donated: 1903
Materials and processes: Material Bamboo Plant, Material Wood Plant, Material String, Material Pottery, Material Cotton Seed Fibre Yarn Plant, Process Carved, Process Twisted, Process Bound, Process Tied, Process Socketed, Process Handbuilt, Process Fire-Hardened
Dimensions: Diameter: max 14.3 mm, Length 564 mm total, Length 81 mm, Length 510 mm, Diameter 44 mm, Weight 73.6 g
Object numbers: Accession number: 1903.2.2.1 Accession number: 1903.2.2.2
Research and responses: Gondokoro is located in Southern Sudan on the Bahr el Jebel river, in the modern administrative district known as Bahr el Jebel, just northeast of Juba. At the time this object was collected, the Ugandan border lay just north of Gondokoro (it was moved further south in 1910), hence the association in the accessions book of this object with Uganda.
Loat probably was the collector as well as donor of this object, as he is known to have worked around Gondokoro during 1902 (see Boulenger, G.A., 1902, “List of the fishes collected by Mr. W.L.S. Loat at Gondokoro”, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (Ser. 7) 10 (38), pp 260-264).
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) [RTS 10/12/2004].
Associated publications: Illustrated in colour as figure e on page 36 of A Shared Struggle: The People & Cultures of South Sudan, edited by Tim McKulka (no place [Juba]: Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, Government of the Republic of South Sudan and the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, 2013). Caption (same page): 'Bari iron and wood tobacco pipe'. [JC 28 2 2014]

Search terms: Narcotic, Pottery, Pipe, Tobacco Accessory