Ethiopian Round Milk Jug with String Tied Leather Top

A dark, bulbous container patched and stitched, with a stubby neck wound in cord.

This round wooden milk jug with string-tied leather top is from Ethiopia, East Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is wood, hemp & leather. In the Horn of Africa, pastoral and farming communities have long used carved wooden vessels for milk, and some are cleaned and smoked to flavor the contents. A rounded, shiny, deep-brown vessel with seams of coarse stitched down the front and sides. A tapering collar at the top is wrapped with a rough cord. The surface is worn and dull in places. It is 9 inches high and 5 in diameter.

Patched up, tied down, and quite content about it.