Beaded Container 
Tutsi people
Rwanda
Early 20th century
Glass beads applied to carved wood container
23.5 cm high   (9 1/4")

Probably used for storing ceremonial beer straws. The perforations in the wood (where beads are missing) once held a strap.

Only one other example of this type is known to us from the collection of the Musée Royale de l'Afrique Centrale,Tervuren, Belgium, as published by Margaret Trowell in her seminal study of African decorative arts: African Design  (London 1960), Plate XXXIX.