A mealie (maize or corn) bowl made from blackened wood. The bowl is egg-shaped with a flat top with a round opening, which has a small lip with a chip out of it. The surface of the bowl and the three, short legs are textured with grooves that form a vertical zigzag design. Inside the bowl there is evidence of burning.
Label: black with white handwriting.
This is a type of carved wood vessel usually described as intended for serving milk or beer. 'Mainly due to their lack of visible signs of use, there is some uncertainty as to whether or not this genre of vessel, referred to inconsistently in early sources… as milk pots and also as beer pots, has any pre-colonial precedent or function. Nettleton has pointed out that these (usually lidded) vessels, possibly based on the form of smaller snuff containers for indigenous use, are now generally thought to have originated in mid-nineteenth-century Natal' (ie the British colony of Natal as opposed to the Zulu Kingdom, which was independent prior to 1879) (Elliott, Cartwright and Kevin, 2013, p 19).
