 |
|
Decorated mortar, town at base of Bandiagara escarpment, Mali, June 1998 Photo ©1998 by L. Lee McIntyre |
|
|
|
Decorated mortar, town at base of Bandiagara escarpment, Mali, June 1998 Photo ©1998 by L. Lee McIntyre |
Throughout Mali, women prepare corn (maize), millet, or sorghum by husking it in a mortar like this one with a wooden pestle, and then winnowing it with a winnnowing tray to separate the chaff from the grain, then pounding the grain into flour in a mortar again. This mortar has been decorated with carved images of the first ancestral beings called nommos.