KUH MENDU (PALM WINE PRESTIGE POT)
[1,2]: KUH MENDU (PALM WINE PRESTIGE POT)
[3]: A man doing the final burnishing of a similar vessel: a palace regulatory society palm wine jug (ku betobu)
[4]: Close-up of the large, “hollow” outer rim design on another similar kuh mendu
[5]: “Palm wine pot (kuh mendu) placed in the main dance field during fon Nchofoa II’s death celebration.”
[6,7,10]: Babessi women potters displaying their produced pots at the weekly market. Amongst the palm wine pots are other vessel types like water pots and wash basins. We’ll explore some of these in future posts
[9,11,13]: The production process of a kuh mendu
[8,12]: Other palm wine pots with different motif styles
[14]: A better view of the palm wine pot’s large rim for preventing spilling
From: Babessi kingdom, Grassfields, Cameroon 🇨🇲Source [1,2]: @ncartmuseum
Source [3]: “Is This How I Looked When I First Got Here? : Pottery and Practice in the Cameroon Grassfields” by Nicolas Argenti, 1999
Source [4]: @csugregoryallicarmuseumofart
Source [5-13]: “Containers of Life : Pottery and Social Relations in the Grassfields (Cameroon)” by Silvia Forni. All photos by Silvia Forni
Source [14]: @clevelandmuseumofart
Source notes [5-13]:
“In Babessi, working with clay functions as a very strong metaphor for human reproduction…The bottom of the pot (nyikuh) is in itself considered a potential person. The bottom of the pot, with its symmetry, balance, and regularity, is like the “center of a human being,”…[and] needs to be regarded with care because it contains the potential for human life. Once the process is initiated, in fact, the potter cannot decide to suspend it at her will, but must carry on the building and the modeling to its final form…”
Source notes [14]:
“Their process alludes to pregnancy, labor, and delivery. Passing knowledge from mother to daughter since at least the 1700s, making pottery is a female economic, social, and artistic contribution.“
Observations: women in design, a strong design language, marriage of art, craft, and design, visual contrast, visual interest, intuitive form, intentional form, multipurpose use.