This is a wooden copy of a small cup made from a pumpkin-shaped gourd, halved vertically. The cavity within is not divided and in use the drinker would hold one end of the cup in the hollow of his palm, with index finger and thumb in the middle recesses.

On both sides is a face representing a hemba nkisi, a northern Suku charm and initiation mask, intended to ward off unauthorised touching of the cup.

Margret Carey, 1997

Entry taken from Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, Vol. 2: Pacific, African and Native North American Art, edited by Steven Hooper (Yale University Press, 1997) p. 182.