Already before 1500 the Xhosa wandered from East Africa to South Africa and penetrated far into the area that was traditionally inhabited by the San and the Khoikhoi. The Xhosa, who call themselves Amaxhosa, are part of the Bantu people who jointly populate the southern half of the African continent. This article presents the variation within this typical Xhosa pipe using examples from the collection from the Amsterdam Pipe Museum. The people themselves continued to use simple wooden pipes, although in addition a culture of luxury smoking pipes developed. So the simple Xhosa pipe with its straight wooden stem and metal inner bowl turned into a product adapted to the taste of the European for whom a pipe became an original gift item for the homeland. The Xhosa tribe soon discovered the economic benefits of their tobacco pipes and gradually created specimens with a tourist design or with colourful beadwork. Travellers became intrigued and bought a Xhosa pipe as a souvenir. It is not surprising that such meetings had a sacred aura and spoke to the imagination of Europeans. Travellers who visited this area in the past were confronted with smoking men and women, often sitting in a circle. In the Eastern Cape of South-Africa, the Xhosa people have found their homeland there after wandering around.
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