Toulambi Pipe Featured In Tribes – The First People

Toulambi people, Papua New Guinea
Jean-Pierre Dutilleux Collection

DESCRIPTION

A rare ethnographic set comprising a traditional pipe collected in Papua New Guinea, its publication in the reference work TRIBES – The First People, and an original signed and numbered photographic print by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux.

Crafted from a carefully hollowed-out section of bamboo, the pipe features a side-firing bowl that retains significant ancient burn marks attesting to its actual use. Its simple and functional cylindrical shape corresponds to the models used by the Toulambi people of the forested regions of Papua.

The item offered here is reproduced in the book TRIBES – The First People in the chapter dedicated to the Toulambi, where it appears among the objects collected and documented during Jean-Pierre Dutilleux’s field missions.

The set is accompanied by an original signed and numbered (1/25) photographic print, framed, depicting a Toulambi man using a large pipe of the same type. This photograph constitutes an exceptional record of traditional tobacco customs observed by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux during his expeditions.

Research based on Jean-Pierre Dutilleux’s photographic, editorial, and film archives also makes it possible to link the figure depicted in the print to the one appearing in the Toulambi chapter of the book as well as in the footage shot in the field. This convergence of documentary sources lends the collection remarkable historical and ethnographic coherence.

The combination of a published object, a signed artist’s photograph, and reference documentation constitutes a collection that is particularly evocative of the fieldwork conducted among the peoples of Papua New Guinea.

COMPOSITION OF THE SET

– Traditional Toulambi bamboo pipe published in TRIBES – The First People
– Original photographic print signed and numbered by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux (1/25), framed
– Book TRIBES – The First People

PROVENANCE

Jean-Pierre Dutilleux Collection, Belgium.