Igbo Palm Wine Tapper

Image Daily Life

An Igbo palm wine tapper with climbing equipment. From the British Museum, No: Af,B54.27.

A gelatin silver print depicting an Igbo palm wine tapper standing beside a building with a corrugated metal roof. The tapper carries a climbing rope and a calabash over his shoulder and holds a machete in his right hand, wearing a loin-cloth. The wall of the building is decorated with paintings depicting animals and anthropomorphic figures with elongated limbs.

Community Notes

Onyeka Nwokike

Oct 17, 2026

The tapper's equipment includes a traditional climbing tool known as an Agbù (or Agbù-nkwụ), which is designed to loop around the tapper and the tree trunk to provide leverage and safety during the ascent. The calabash used to collect the palm wine sap from the flower bud is referred to as an Oba or Mbe.

Onyeka Nwokike

Oct 17, 2026

The anthropomorphic figures with elongated limbs on the wall represent traditional Igbo mural art. Such motifs were common in the compounds of titled men and are closely associated with Mbari houses in the Owerri and Okigwe areas, as detailed in Wikipedia (Mbari house). These stylistic elements, including large heads and narrow bodies, later influenced the modern Uli art movement, a connection noted in the Tate Exhibition Guide (Nigerian Modernism). The use of a corrugated metal (zinc) roof alongside traditional mud-wall paintings marks a period of architectural transition where industrial materials began replacing traditional thatched roofing, known as akanya.