Prestige bag of a notable
Click here to view a larger version of the imageLot: 164
Timed Online Auction: Collector's Items SalePrestige bag of a notable
Cameroon Grassfields, Bamileke
Provenance | Size | Starting price / estimated price |
---|---|---|
Ian & Susan Sutherland, New York, USA Lynn University, Florida, USA |
M: 12.6 inch x 13.8 inch | This object is not available anymore. |
plant fibre, raffia bast, porcupine quills,
Prestige bags of woven raffia are widely used in the Grassfields. Men often carry practical shoulder bags for their personal belongings (farming tools, drinking horns, cola nuts, snuff, tobacco etc.) The man who set out for the hunt had his bag attached to the spear shaft.
For important occasions men take a better looking bag. Carrying bags like the present one were carried about on market days, death celebrations or important meetings to let it proclaim his position as a lineage-head.
Gebauer, Paul, Art of Cameroon, New York 1979, p. 279, P 149
Kahan, Leonard et .al., A Cameroon World, New York 2007, p. 75