Jarawa Head Carrying Board

The market is far. The load is heavy. The board is the difference.

Head carrying is a long-standing practice across West Africa, and a flat, shaped board helped spread the weight of goods brought home or to market. This one, from Nigeria, is 20th century. A rectangular panel with tapering, pointed extensions at either end, about eighteen and a half inches long. Fine crosshatched lines fill its surface in geometric fields. A small metal plate, fixed with tiny nails where one extension meets the panel, marks an old repair.

The dark wood is smooth from long use. Stand it upright, and it becomes abstract art. A bit of both, in fact.