Origin: Tuareg (Niger)

Local name: alekkod (Tamashek language)

Dating: early 21st century.

Dimensions:

MŻo/A/4033: length (including handle) 105.0 cm, diameter 3.0 cm

MŻo/A/4034: length (including handle) 101.0 cm, diameter 3.3 cm

Made of: leather

Techniques: leather processing techniques

Obtained by: Adam Rybiński, market, Agadez (Niger), 2007.

Description:

A whip is a short riding crop with a handle, woven from leather straps, in Polish it is also called a szpicruta (used for horse riding), sometimes incorrectly bat. The polish words bat and bicz often serve as synonyms, while a bat is used to tame animals and a bicz was used to inflict corporal punishment on people. In the Tamashek language, a whip for driving camels is called an alekkod, but it can also be used for flogging and dancing.

The camel rider sits cross-legged in the saddle, his feet resting on the camel's neck. To encourage the animal to run faster, it presses its foot on the camel's neck to the rhythm of the rocking characteristic of camels. The rider's equipment also includes a whip, which he uses for the same purpose. Most of  whips are a single strap made of a twisted strip of leather, but there are also whips made of two leather straps attached to a wooden handle, common in the mountains of Tassili n'Ajjer (Algeria). It is said that the whips used in the northern areas inhabited by the Tuareg people are made of camel leather soaked in water - the raw leather is twisted and kept twisted until dry. In turn, in the Aïr Mountains (Niger), Tuaregs claim that camel skin is not suitable for whips, but raw leather of a freshly killed ox is different - the wet, twisted piece of which is left to dry, as in the north of the Tuareg areas. The handle of the single-legged whip is made of cotton wrapped around the upper part of the strap and covered with colorful goat leather. Whips and other leather products are made by women of the higher classes of Tuareg society (ihagaren, imrad, ineslemen) [Nicolaisen 1963: 271; Rybiński 1999: 108, 164].

Bibliography:

Nicolaisen Johannes, 1963, Ecology and Culture of the Pastoral Tuareg with Particular Reference to the Tuareg of Ahaggar and Ayr, Copenhagen: The National Museum of Copenhagen.

Rybiński Adam, 1999, Tuaregowie z Sahary, Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Akademickie Dialog.

Rybiński Adam, information provided during interviews (2020-2022).

Edited by Lucjan Buchalik

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The purchase is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture, National Heritage and Sport as part of the National Institute of Museums and Collections' own program "Expansion of museum collections".