Medicine Container

Created to store medicinal mixtures, this type of gourd was owned by a ritual healer and facilitated communication between the spiritual and physical worlds. Activated by prayer and music, it assisted a patient’s transformation from a state of conflict or misfortune to one of well-being. Its figurative stopper may represent a spirit being that would temporarily inhabit the container. As participants in coastal and inland trade networks, cultural groups throughout Tanzania imported European glass beads and routinely used white ones as eyes in their sculptures, as seen here.