Snuff Container
<p>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 or 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.</p>
Catalogue
- Medium
- Ivory
- Dimensions
- with chain extended: 43.9 × 5.1 × 3.9 cm (17 1/4 × 2 × 1 1/2 in.); container only: 8 × 5.1 × 3.9 cm (3 1/8 × 2 × 1 1/2 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Maasai
Artist
The Maasai are an Eastern Nilotic ethnic group native to northern, central and southern regions of Kenya including northern Tanzania, near the African Great Lakes region. Their native language is the Maasai language, a Nilotic language related to Dinka, Kalenjin and Nuer. A branch within the broader Nilo-Saharan language family. Except for some elders living in rural areas, most Maasai people speak the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania—Swahili and English.
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Record
Verified by WattsOSSource
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified