Very Rare Huge Old Ethnic Hunting & Gathering Water Gourd, Calabash Decorated with Woven Bark Strips, Nassa Shells & Seed Beads, Dani Tribe, Baliem Valley, Irian Jaya, West Papua, 30" Long, collected in late 20th Century

Rare older very large and unique tribal water gourd. From the Dani tribe, Irian Jaya, West Papua. Decorated all over with a hand twisted, & then woven, Bilum twine made of bark fiber, with, in addition, Nassa shells, Cuscus fur & seed beads accents as well as spots of woven yellow dendrobium orchid fiber, and a wood stopper, hand carved in the image of a Dani man's face, wearing a decorative cap on its head, also made of woven twine (the original stopper was lost on a hunting trip so a tribal member carved a new one at the time: the gourd is much older than the stopper that now corks it. A hand woven strap of bark fiber twine completes the receptacle, for easy carrying. It is hard to grown gourds to this very large size except with daily tending using weights which the Dani are very knowledgeable of, taking great pride and gaining notoriety with the results, from the tribe. This is why it used to belong to the chief of the Dani village, seen on one of the photos. One of a kind.