Gurage Mukecha or Coffee Grinding Vessel

Long wooden pestle leans out of its dark block like it owns the place.

This mukecha or coffee grinding vessel is Gurage, from Ethiopia, East Africa, and dates to the 19th century. It is wood. The Gurage are a people of south-central Ethiopia, known for farming and for the cultivation of enset, a plant sometimes called the false banana. Cylindrical dark vessel with a flared foot, its sides cut with fine slanting grooves. A tall, knobbed wooden handle stands in the bore, leaning to one side. A small metal staple is set into the rim. It is 7 inches wide, 7 deep and 6.5 high.

Whoever made the handle was clearly paid by the knuckle.