This bowl was fashioned from a gourd and designed by using native Peruvian etching styles and practices. The design that is depicted was created by using a buril to engrave or draw the scene upon the gourd. Occasionally the artists will draw out their design in pencil before using the buril to permanently impress the scene. Once the design or scene has been fully engraved, the gourd is burnt to make the artwork stand out against the lighter colour of the gourd. It is more common to find bowls that have been carved from gourds than bowls that are made from ceramics among natives in the Andes and this practice dates back about 6,000 years in Peruvian history.
The bowl depicts a scene of a Peruvian mountainside. There are images of oxen and men plowing fields and a bus driving down a road that winds from the top to the bottom of the bowl. There are alpaca in the proper left bottom corner and houses above them. On the proper right there is an Andean woman leading an alpaca through the hills. These scenes together show the many facets of Peruvian live and detail the importance of farming and alpacas to their culture.
