Souvenirs

[WV Sawmiller]

   Okay, about to croak from cabin fever and 6-10 inches more snow coming tonight so figured I'd post a few grainy pictures of some souvenirs we have picked up on our travels. We tend to pick up everyday work items from remote areas where we vacationed. Things others use for household chores like baskets, mortars/pestles, hunting nets, spears, blowguns, hats, cloth, camel saddle bags, drums, pots, etc.

   I am sure you guys all have hobbies and collect different things too. Why don't you share a few of your favorites with us.



  Mortar and pestle from Cameroon. Common household implement like a mixer or blender for us. Skin head drum from Koume (Koo Mah) people in N. Cameroon/Nigeria. Clay pot and carved walking stick. FWI - unglazed pots leak - this one about 5 gallons before I found out.


  A real hodge-podge on above our kitchen cabinets. Toys and carvings for tourists, a short blowgun and darts from the Amazon (used to teach kids until they can use a full length one), baskets with packstraps woven into them used to carry our gear on treks to camp with Koume people, nets made of vine bark string used by pygmies in Central African Republic, ceremonial marriage G-strings used by women of Rhumsiki village, baskets used as cages for pigs an dchickens, wooden paddle used in Ethiopia to winnow Injara seeds, red cloth worn by Masaai and Samburu herdsmen in Kenya, spears from pygmies and Kenya tribesmen.


  More baskets (amazing craftsman ship here), straw hats, paddles from Africa and the Amazon, pygmy crossbow, coarse basket used as hen nests, longhorn cow horn made into a blowing horn, a leather rope bought off Mongolian herders after they put a rodeo on for us in exchange for a copy of a picture my wife gave each of them. (Special knot joins the section - cost same as 2 year old horse - about $42 at the time)


  Camel saddle bags from the Junk Souq outside Jeddah Saudi Arabia.

  One of my favorites - triangle shaped backpack with well worn machete. Basket and straps made of bark on a rattan frame. I bought this off a pygmy hunter who stopped to rest near a road intersection. Inside and on both sides are crawfish traps made of thin wooden strips women near Petit Battanga north of Kribi Cameroon (trading post where fishermen and farmers meet to trade).


  

  

  More baskets. Winnowing basket and tray is used to blow chaff off rice, seeds, etc and also used as a tray. Large one shown from Cameroon, smaller ones from Guinea. Every lady I saw laughed when they saw me with them there. I guess a man has to be pretty henpecked to use one in their society.

  There were aluminum factories and washpot style cookware and other pots of cast aluminum were used by the people in Cameroon and Guinea for their cooking over open fires. Large wooden bowls as shown were probably used more to sell to tourists than the natives. Natives used large gourds for storage and household use.

  On our mantel we have a large collection of small flags from the countries we visited when we could find them. Some were gifts from our various exchange students. Genie lamps from Iraq tour, wooden shoe and KLM whisky bottles from trips to and from Holland.

[Chuck White]

Wow, that's quite a collection!

[WV Sawmiller]

Wow, that's quite a collection!

   The neat thing about them is every time I look at one or show them to someone it is an instant memory jog and return to the place and time they came from. My big concern is what to do with all of them when the kids finally put us in a nursing home.