Skip to content
Pitt Rivers Museum
AboutHire the MuseumNewsletterUniversity of Oxford

1923.34.5

Wooden tobacco pipe, smoked by women, decorated with beadwork

1923.34.5

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

Terms and Conditions

If you wish to order a high-resolution image and/or licence its use for print or web publication, exhibition, film, promotional product or any other use, whether in the academic or commercial sector of any print run, then please visit photographic services.

Collection type
Object
Description
Wooden tobacco pipe, smoked by women, decorated with beadwork
Long description
Wooden tobacco pipe, smoked by women, decorated with beadwork. Long slender bowl, the inside and rim lined with thin iron, brass band round the top, long slender stem decorated with beadwork white bands alternating with coloured ones, blue white, red and purple beads used -mouthpiece plain. The whole pipe carved from a hard wood light and dark brown in colour. The stem near the bowl is decorated with two small bands of thin iron Flat rounded projection carved at base of bowl. The bowl is full of tobacco. [MJD 16/07/2013]
Geographical reference
South Africa
Africa > Southern Africa > South Africa
Eastern Cape Tsolo [St Cuthbert's Mission]
Cultural groups
Xhosa
Mpondomise
Person
Field collector Frank Cornner
PRM source Frank Cornner
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1923
Date collected
By 1923
Acquisition information
Donated: 1923
Materials and processes
Material Wood Plant, Material Bead, Material Iron Metal, Material Brass Metal, Material Tobacco Plant, Process Carved, Process Beadwork
Dimensions
Width 20 mm outer width at top, Height 63 mm bowl, Length: max 200 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1923.34.5
Research and responses

For information on the collector, the mission for which he worked (St Cuthbert at Tsolo), and the wider context, see 'Jubilee Dandies: Collecting Beadwork in Tsolo, Eastern Cape 1897–1932', by Anitra Nettleton, in African Arts, Vol. 46, no. 1 (Spring 2013), pp. 36–49. (Printout of article in RDF for collection 1923.34.) [JC 25 11 2015]

For information on the collector, the mission for which he worked (St Cuthbert at Tsolo), and the wider context, see 'Of Severed Heads and Snuff Boxes: "Survivance" and Beaded Bodies in the Eastern Cape, 1897–1932', by Anitra Nettleton, in African Arts, Vol. 48, no. 4 (Winter 2015), pp. 22–33. (Printout of article in RDF for collection 1923.34.) [JC 25 11 2015]

Search terms: Narcotic, Status, Tobacco Accessory, Pipe

Further items to explore