This pipe bowl made of fired clay depicts a crocodile. It was made at the beginning of the 20th century in the Kingdom of Bamum in the Cameroon grasslands. 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 should be and in the kingdom of Bamum, crocodiles were symbolically closely associated with the king. The pipe bowl was collected between 1903 and 1914 by the doctor Anton Handl. Handl served as a doctor in the so-called German Protection Force for Cameroon between 1903 and 1913. In 1909, the Ethnological Museum acquired two similar tobacco pipe bowls: a larger one from Mr Thorbecke (III C 28973) and a smaller one from Mr Ankermann (III C 25572). (JF 03.01.2017)