Wooden Pipe - Kayapó

Brazilian Amazonia
Collection Jean-Pierre Dutilleux

Rare hardwood tubular pipe, of elongated tapered shape, featuring a through axial conduit as well as an orifice intended for combustion.

The object, with its particularly streamlined silhouette, displays an old patina consistent with prolonged use in a field context.

This pipe comes from Jean-Pierre Dutilleux's personal collection and has been appraised as belonging to this ensemble.

Its interest is considerably enhanced by Dutilleux's published accounts of his expeditions among the Kayapó and his encounters with the chief Raoni.

In a famous episode recounted in On the Trail of Lost Peoples, Dutilleux describes a particularly dangerous landing over hostile Kayapó territory. Raoni opens the plane's window and throws down his pipe to signal his identity to the warriors present. The author explains:

"Our destiny hangs on this small conical object that all the members of the tribe know to be Raoni's (...) Hostilities cease at once."

Dutilleux adds that this pipe will later be offered to him "as a sign of thanks" and that he will keep it for years as a good-luck charm.

The present example, by virtue of its morphology, direct provenance and manifest authenticity of use, fits with exceptional documentary force into the ethnographic and narrative universe linked to the Kayapó and Jean-Pierre Dutilleux's great Amazonian expeditions.

More than a simple utilitarian object, this pipe appears today as the tangible vestige of an episode that has become emblematic of the history of encounters between Jean-Pierre Dutilleux and Raoni's Kayapó - a field object charged at once with memory, tension and human survival.

PROVENANCE

Collection Jean-Pierre Dutilleux

INTÉRÊT

- confirmed Dutilleux provenance;

- direct link to Jean-Pierre Dutilleux's published Kayapó stories;

- strong historical and narrative dimension;

- authenticity of use;

- particularly contemporary minimalist aesthetic.