This is an old well used beer pot.
There is a tiny nick on the neck
Rimless pots made from fine clay are made by women throughout the KwaZulu-Natal region. The smooth black finish is achieved by refiring the already baked pots in a dry grass fire, before rubbing their surfaces with animal fat. Pots of this kind are intended for serving & drinking a sorgham- based beer that is brewed in larger, roughly made clay vessels. The drinking of this beer is associated not only with the living, but also with the dead, to whom it is offered whenever ritual dictates that the ancestors must be remembered & appeased.
Height 9" x 10" diameter.
