Tobacco has long been traded by the Makonde people in East Africa (Tanzania, Mozambique), often in exchange for wares or services. Smoking tobacco was considered to be a luxury. The technique of tobacco smoking was adopted by the Makonde people from oriental water pipes. In these pipes the hot smoke is drawn through a chamber with cooling water. For many centuries there has been an oriental influence on the East African coast as well as on the Makonde people. It came in particular from South Arabia and Oman. From this style of water pipe, the Makonde people developed their own particular version called the ‘Nyangwa pipe’, the present being an example. It consists of four parts: the pipe bowl above is made of clay (due to the heat). Attached to that is the anthropomorphic middle piece that has been carved from wood. It is in the form of a seated person decorated with a fine, linear relief and with a handle, to hold the pipe, carved out from the same piece. The posterior of the seated person is a small coconut that simultaneously functions as a water chamber for the hot tobacco smoke. The fourth part of the pipe is the mouthpiece – a thin bamboo cane that protrudes from the knees of the seated figure and through which cooled smoke is sucked from the water chamber. Among the Makonde people these ‘Nyangwa water pipes’ were not just meant for use but were rather objects of prestige. They were only owned by village chiefs or priests and are therefore rare. The present ‘Makonde Nyangwa’ has only four small, insignificant, superficially damaged areas to the wood of the figure itself. Otherwise no damage. It has an old shiny patina and good traces of usage in the right places. Inventory number from a collection, in white writing, on the outside of the right foot of the seated figure.
Dimensions: 25 cm x 26 cm x 8 cm.
First half of the 20th century. (ME)

Provenance:
South African private collection.