Pipe bowl

Besides beautiful standing figures with intricate scarifications, The Luluwa carve snuff-mortars and pipe-bowls which include some highly imaginative treatments of the human body. A second look at the little man forming the pipe-bowl shows that his thighs are absent; the forearms and elbows are supported by a downward continuation ending in the feet. The balance of parts is such that even when the missing thighs are noticed the figure still looks right.

The pipe stem would have been fairly thick, of hollowed wood with a cane mouthpiece. The man’s head forms the bowl of the pipe, with a hole pierced through to the square perforation in his body to link to the stem.

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. 199.