This clay pipe bowl depicts a ruler or a dignitary. It was made in Bamessing in the Cameroon grasslands at the beginning of the 20th century. Around 1900, kings, dignitaries and heads of families in the Cameroon grasslands smoked tobacco. The higher the rank of the smoker, the more splendid the pipe was supposed to be. Around 1908, the ethnologist Bernhard Ankermann (*1869 - †1943) commissioned dozens of tobacco pipes from local artists during a research trip to Cameroon. He bought other pipes in local markets. They were unused when the then Royal Museum of Ethnology acquired them.