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Description: | Item number 20 on Jeremy Keenan's item list. Goat hair cord with tassels called 'ahellum' in Tamahaq. Keenan acquired this object from Umeyda of the Kel Hirafok people. Price paid: 25 dinar. Keenan refers to fig 208 in Johannes Nicolaisen's 'Ecology and culture of the pastoral Tuareg: with particular reference to the Tuareg of Ahaggar and Ayr' (Nicolaisen, 1963, p 264, fig 208).
Nicolaisen describes the manufacture of a cord of goat's hair (which is sheared with a knife by the women once a year in the hot season): '(1) the hair ("éhafilen") is spun around a little stick ("aseggelem"). (2) The spun hair is trebled and twisted into a thread known as "tassarkit", or "tassagit", between two sticks ("iseggelam", sing. "aseggelem"). (3) The finished cord ("ahellum") which is made by trebling the "tassagit" thread' (Nicolaisen, 1963, p 264; for a slightly more detailed description see pp 263-266).
Hank of rope 'ahellum' black and white, plaited goat hair ending in tassels bound with orange, green, purple, black and white cotton thread. | Publisher: | http://www.horniman.ac.uk/ | Subjects: | cotton Tuareg ropes (general & multipurpose) | Source: | Horniman Museum | Identifier: | oai:oai.horniman.ac.uk:object-48292 |
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