Smoking Hukkas or pipes

Hollow bamboo culms with a base formed at internode, or hollow cane, are used as water containers in the ingenious construction of hukkas or pipes used by both men and women of the North East.

A portion of the rhizome, the underground stem of bamboo, forms the upper lid which is made so as to hold two pipes, one along the central axis, and the other diagonally, and generally longer than the first. The second pipe is used to pull in the smoke while the vertical one is used to hold a clay receptacle, now missing, containing tobacco.