Hi there! Welcome to our website! We hope through navigating our website we can help educate you on the numumusow, otherwise known as "blacksmith women" of Bamana. The arrival of ethnographer-administrators and missionaries in Western Mali during the colonial period allowed ceramic processes and products to appear throughout local cultural practices. Frantz de Zeltner in 1915 described Bamana pottery as "rough, less than spherical, and without decoration, handles or feet" (Frank 22). Today, the potters of Bamana create pottery made for everyday, common purposes, like cooking pots, water jars, sauce pots, wash-basins, and incense burners.
Frank, Barbara E. Mande Potters & Leatherworkers. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998. Print