Description

The grey-yellow kantu, which are produced in cone form as cattle salt and weigh about 25 kg, are reminiscent of slightly oversized traffic pylons. The shape comes from the fact that hollowed-out palm stalks serve the salt workers as moulds for drying the salt. Another product form of salt is the so-called fotschi (foschi) (in the background), salt loaves shaped by women in enamel bowls, weighing up to about 2 kg and mostly consisting of beza, crystallised, relatively pure salt that is used as table salt. About three quarters of the salt produced is kantu salt, one quarter is beza salt. - Bilma - Kaouar - Ténéré - Niger - 1975

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