Digul Smoking Tube

A fine smoking tube – the mouth piece for a tobacco pipe. The outside is beautifully decorated with positive/negative technique involving the removal of the outter skin of the bamboo in desired areas to create a difference of color and material as well as creating a slight « champ-levé » effect. The motifs created represent the typical head-to-tail repetitive « spear » heads of the Digul. This motif is also ; and probably foremost , the representation of the Flying-fox and thus the Human ancestor. Digul People, Baliem Valley, Central Indonesian New Guinea, Melanesia. Bamboo with a fine patina of age and use. 23,5 x 1,7 Ø cm. 20th century.
See the same type of object in the Troppen Museum, Amsterdam, N° TM-2316-66.
 

Literature: See the same type of object in the Troppen Museum, Amsterdam, N° TM-2316-66.