Rare wood trumpet
Description
blackish brown patina, consisting of two parts, horn-shaped head piece inserted in the cylindrical corpus, fixed by animal skin, incised diamond-shaped patterns in three compartments, slightly dam., minor missing parts (rim of the bell mouth), traces of insect caused damage;
wooden trumpets are very rare among the peoples of Tanzania. A comparable object once was in the collection of Walter Bareiss and is depicted in the publication “Kilengi” and in the standard work on Tanzanian art by Jens Jahn. The peoples of eastern Tanzania considered trumpets as status symbols “of chiefs or of the leaders of voluntary associations”.