I love seeing calabashes decorated with pyrography - burnt design. A calabash is a kind of very large gourd. In Mali they are ground growing plants - a kind of vine - and one sees huge fields of round objects, a rather surreal experience. I’ll see if I can find a photo. The gourds are hollow inside with some seeds and a little soft matter. When they are harvested they are green and they are allowed to dry and they then become whitish - when is bleached by the sun. In Segou one can find shops selling these objects. They make great presents.

The following article has an extensive description with many pictures:

Pyrography: Traditional Art

by Kathleen Menendez (excerpted by Ilja Scholten)

To Timbuktu in Search of Pyrography!

On the Sahara Desert at Timbuktu Visiting a Tuareg Man and his Camels

The Republic of Mali is a West African country, located on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. Timbuktu is one of Mali’s northernmost cities–very remote even from the capital city of Bamako, where our anthropologists who got us these photos live and work. The term folk art is designated to represent that art which is the naive interpretation of an unapprenticed artist–the spontaneous inspiration of an unschooled individual. In the case of traditional art, although it often originates from the common people wishing to adorn and enhance their surroundings and everyday accoutrements (the aforementioned overlap in meaning), the emphasis is, nevertheless, on the tradition. Moreover, the word “tradition” implies some sort of apprenticeship and imparted cultural reference. “Tradition” tells us there is a proscribed format, the incorporation of recognized symbols, an inherent ethnicity.

Pyroengraved Bench in Traditional Pyrography of Mali

A Malian pyrographer uses several large, but thin, metal tools much like knives that have flattened blades with tips heated over hot coals. The coals are in a little metal bin with a small hand-pressed bellows attached to fire them up. He doesn’t sit at a table, but sits on a little bench close to the ground with the bellows on the ground beside him.

In keeping with the preferences of most pyrographic artists, Malian artists likewise prefer very white wood. They also pyroengrave a great deal on calabashes.