Maasai snuff container, Kenya

Snuff containers made from small gourds are highly personal items among the Samburu and other nomadic herder groups. Typically carried on the body and used to store tobacco snuff, they were decorated with glass beads and iron chains. A costly luxury product, tobacco is consumed by both men and women for social and medicinal purposes, or sniffed as a means of communicating with ancestors and other spirits during divination.

The containers could be made of different materials, like ivory,  horn, or wood.

Provenance: German private collection.

See a similar example in the collection of the Art Institut of Chicago.

Dimensions: 8 x 4,5 x 4,5 cm

AF27