Kenya
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2
| Catalog # | Name | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2020-FIC-103 | Necklace | Maasai beaded necklace made for the tourist trade. These necklaces are made into a circle to represent the village. Maasai villages are built in a circle, with a perimeter fence and a livestock pen in the middle. The hole in the necklace symbolises the cattle pen. |
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| 2 | 2022-27-83 | String Instrument | Kenyan branch guitar. The body of the instrument is made from the bottom of a dried and hollowed out calabash gourd which has animal hide parchment stretched over it and held in place with metal tacks; a string of ornamental cowrie shells has been wrapped around the top edge of the body. A carved wooden figure of a person's head and torso is attached to the bottom of the body, the bottom of this figure has been wrapped in animal hide and attached to the body using metal tacks. At the top of the body there are 6 curved sticks which pass through holes in the body where they are fixed in place using an unknown adhesive; each stick has a slit in the top through which a string is pulled through, wrapped around the top of the stick, then knotted, with the excess string pulled back through the slit again. There are 6 strings made from white thread; they are tied to the tops of the 6 sticks then stretched down and threaded through small holes made in the parchment near the bottom of the body, due to the construction of the instrument it is not possible to tell exactly where the strings are attached after they enter the body. |
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