Dan Wood Medicine Grinder, Based

A carved open hand at the top of a long shaft. It appears to be asking for something.

This medicine grinder is Dan, from Liberia, West Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is carved wood, mounted on a base. Among the Dan, as across much of West Africa, healers prepared remedies by pounding and grinding plants and other ingredients, and tools for that work could be carved with care. The long dark shaft flares at its lower end and rises to a cuff of carved notches beneath the hand. The palm shows a lighter, rubbed patch. Twenty-two inches high.

Some tools are simply better company than others.