- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Oval cake of compressed tobacco, with convex upper surface and concave underside, used for smoking and as snuff [RTS 19/10/2004].
- Long description
- Oval cake of compressed tobacco, somewhat fibrous in texture and orangey brown in colour (Pantone 463C). The cake is oval in plan view, with a convex back, well defined edges and irregular, concave underside with some linear impressions running randomly across the surface. It is complete and intact, with a weight of 150.3 grams, measuring 125 mm long, 80 mm wide and 40 mm high [RTS 19/10/2004].
- Geographical reference
- Cultural groups
- Nuer
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1936
- Date collected
- October to November 1936
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1937
- Materials and processes
- Material Tobacco Plant, Process Modelled, Process Dried
- Dimensions
- Width 80 mm, Height 40 mm, Length 125 mm, Weight 150.3 g
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1937.34.62
- Research and responses
Collected by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard during his last period of fieldwork amongst the Nuer between October and November 1936, where he worked amongst the Nuer Leek in the area west of the Nile (pers. comm. Chris Morton 2004).
This cake would have been used for smoking, and as snuff. It is known to the Nuer as tap. The Dinka Tuich use the same term for tobacco products - see for example 1979.20.82 tiem tap, a zoomorphic tobacco box; gourd tobacco flask 1934.8.20, known as guntab, and wooden and gourd tobacco containers 1979.20.104 and 1979.20.90, known as matup tap.
Schweinfurth published a tobacco cake of similar form, in his section on the 'Mittoo', who were probably one of the sub-groups of the Rumbek Jur; this was slightly smaller, with a diameter of 30 mm. He commented that “The tobacco, which so frequently circulates in commerce as a substitute for money among all the negro tribes of the Upper Nile territory, has this shape, and Col. Speke observed it also among the Wanyamuezi. The leaves, while in a half-dry state, having been pounded in a small wooden mortar, the latter is used as a form, and the pounded lumps are then left to dry. The very compact mass has subsequently to be ground between stones and broken into small pieces to be employed as tobacco for smoking" (G.A. Schweinfurth, 1875, Artes Africanae, pl. X figure 2). See also tobacco cakes 1937.64.61, which is conical, and 63-64 (Nuer, Evans-Pritchard), and 1902.17.2 (Shilluk, D. Gunn - made by being steeped in cow's urine and pressed into a cake), which have an oval form with convex top. [RTS 19/9/2005].
Search terms: Narcotic, Specimen, Plant, Tobacco Accessory, Tobacco Narcotic