Surreal-esque Hand-stitched Seal Fur Wrapped Pipe, Presumed Inuit hybrid with excellent aging and wear

with excellent aging and wear to the surfaces

spring tension catching/gripping mechanism

And those faces

I love how visceral the hand of the carver is in this one

though perhaps I am mis-reading the shorter figure one one side--to be three male figures

Surreal-esque Hand-stitched Seal Fur Wrapped Pipe, Presumed Inuit hybrid with excellent aging and wearWhen I spotted this one, I immediately saw it as a marriage between Meret Oppenheim's fur lined tea cup and Rene Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe; a very surrealist sort of object, and to my sensibilities quite a wonderful one. But with the fur being seal fur, I would presume it is in fact Inuit Alaskan Eskimo, and would guess the function of the fur was to make it easier to hold and pack the pipe in the cold, and also to make it personal to the