HAND CARVED NYAMI NYAMI stick

Authentication or verification of the item will be for the seller to arrange as will all matters of shipping and insurance be for the account of the buyer. Should the seller be asked to assist with facilitation of any such aspect such service may be charged for.

These sticks are ceremonial rather than walking sticks which is why they have the spike and not a flat end.

Rather than using them as walking sticks they would be stuck in the ground if a chief or an elder was at an indaba.  

A lot of work went into them using primitive tools and perhaps bits of glass from the odd bottle that had found its way into the community and may have been broken.

This one is a Nyami-Nyami – the Zambezi serpent river god that the Africans said would stop Kariba dam being built – floods and other disasters nearly did that, so perhaps…..

Note the captive ball in a cage and the circlet of wood that were created from the one piece of wood. There used to be two circlets but one disintegrated.

I got these (there is another one advertised) from a tribesman sitting outside a hut, carving, next to the track. I was driving through the bush and the Matusadona reserve to reach Bumi Hills - it on the far side of the lake from the Kariba settlement. The sticks were stuck in the ground right next to the track obviously in the hope that someone, in the very occasional vehicle, might see them and stop.

Note the ball in the cage - very clever carving and the circlet of wood left on the stick

Showing the stick stuck in the ground

Shown with the other stick (for sale in another posting) and showing the spike at the bottom