Yuko Cooking vessel

All items were collected by owner in 1969, during fieldwork among the Yukpa-Yuko Indians of the Serrania de Valledupar-Sierra de Perijá Region of the Colombia and Venezuela border. All items are originals and none were made for the tourist souvenir business (Which did not exist at that time in that remote region. I don’t know if it exists nowadays).

This is probably one of the only surviving authentic Yukpa-Yuko clay cooking vessel anywhere in the world. By the 1960s all traditional clay vessels had been displaced by metal cooking pots in the more accessible parts of the Sierra de Perija. Only in the remote interior of the mountains did clay pots survive. They were heavy and fragile, and so difficult to transport from these mountains.

This cooking vessel was made by the last surviving master potter of the Yuko group of this tribe, who inhabit the valleys at Socorpa, in Colombia. Lucho died in 1970.

Dimensions (cm):

Height 11.0

Diameter 15.5 cm

Thickness 1.0

Material: Local riverine clay fired in the household cooking fire.

Produced: August 1969

Place: Socorpa, Colombia, South America