Producer unknown to us
Cassava grating board
Americas, Peru, Maynas Province
Around 1970
Balsawood, carved; tinplate, drilled, nailed
Werner and Vera Hartwig (Ethnologists) acquired this mask during a teaching and research trip to Peru in 1971–1972
Purchased by the museum from Werner Hartwig in 1972
SAm 23000
This cassava grating board consists of a small narrow wooden board with half of a tinplate beverage can nailed to it. The can has been drilled through at regular intervals, and the resulting ridges create the grating effect. Cassava roots must be grated into a pulp and then pressed to extract their bitter and poisonous juice before the pulp can be processed into flour. Traditionally, these grating boards were encrusted with thorns.
Werner and Vera Hartwig went on a teaching and research trip to Peru from 1971 to 1972, where the Peruvian government commissioned them to assist in the construction of a museum. They traveled to the Amazon region in order to document the Indigenous cultures there, such as the Bora. One of the focal points of their trip was to study the living and social conditions and the cultural transition of Indigenous groups as well as the country’s national minority policy. This idea was in line with the Marxist disciplinary interest of GDR ethnology, but especially with the research outline in Leipzig, which focused on the development of hierarchies and class societies in world history and on economic and social issues in history and ethnology.
Frank Usbeck