Gourd spoon, inside of spoon handle is painted white. Outside handle is painted with red, white, blue, yellow and green strips. Outside of scoop is painted yellow with blue, red and green lines.
How is it used? (1 para)
This spoon is a common utensil made from a hollowed out gourd. Because the gourd is hard skinned it can hold water and can therefore be used for both food and drink.
Spoons like this are cheap and easy to make. They are available at the market place and make a very practical alternative to metal spoons.
Who is it used by and why them? ( 1 para) i.e a specific group or gender or specialist, why
Hollowed out half gourds such as this are common all over Africa and particularly in rural areas. They are used wherever the gourd plant grows so they are used by many different cultural groups in many different countries. They are mostly used for domestic chores and therefore mainly used by women.
Gourds are hard skinned fruits from the same plant family as melons, pumpkins, squashes and cucumbers. Most grow on vines and some on trees in tropical climates all over the world. They grow in different shapes and sizes and when hollowed out and dried they make excellent containers.
They are one of the first plants to be cultivated throughout the world and have been in use for thousands of years. There are even suggestions that early humans carried spare food in gourds, allowing them to expand into other territories. The gourd is the only plant that experts believe to have spanned the entire globe.
Gourds are very versatile and their range of shapes and sizes makes them suitable for many different purposes. If they are not cut in half like this example a whole gourd is commonly used to carry water, store milk or home made beer. They also have many uses outside of the home. They make very good fishing floats and very large half gourds have even been used as boats! There is an annual festival in Nigeria where people take to the river in gourd boats.
The hard-shell gourd, being hollow, serves as a natural echo chamber. It is, therefore, not surprising to find that gourds have been used for thousands of years to amplify sound. Stretch some animal skin over the cut off end of a gourd and you have a drum. These drums are found most commonly in African countries. Gourds also serve as separate resonators or echo chambers in other instruments - the ‘mbira’ (thumb piano) of Africa and the wooden-keyed ‘balafon’ xylophone or ‘marimba’ of Africa and South America are often amplified with the addition of gourds.
