Vintage Baganda Hima Milk Jug, Uganda - 112.4

A vintage Hima milk jug, known as an Ebyanzi, from the Bahima people of Uganda. Carved hollow from omusisa tree wood, then soaked in mud in a shallow well for a week before being blackened over the soot and smoke of a lamp.

Used for storing milk after milking the cow, these jugs also doubled as a measure: a bride-to-be was expected to drink a jug's worth of milk daily in the lead-up to her wedding, the Bahima measuring a family's wealth by the fatness of their daughters. Jugs like this would often split with age and were repaired with a metal bandage to stop them leaking.

Size: 18cm D x 24cm H.