kula (Jug)

Water container.

utilitarian; household

Yoruba pottery is normally made by women. Pots are molded, by hand and sometimes with the feet. Bodies are coiled on molded bases. Corn cobs are rolled over the surface for consolidation, and then smoothed by hand. They are open fired with grass and brushwood for less than 2 hours (low-fired). For pots with black lustre, pots still hot from firing are smoked with wet leaves, then dipped in locust-bean liquor.

Dark brown to black jug with a semi-gloss, smooth surface. Short neck separates large round body from cup-shaped mouth. Handle extends from shoulder to lip. Jug is decorated with incised lines wrapped horizontally around top half of body, and interrupted by sections of curved lines running from the neck, and shoulder junction to the base. Other straight and curving lines decorate the neck, handle, and mouth. Ring base. Flanged stopper (part b) with projecting top sits in recessed opening of mouth.