ABSTRACT
In the Western world Nupe native industries would fall under the heading of 'home industries'. The Nupe brass-smiths—tswata muku—reside almost exclusively in Bida. The blacksmiths are called tswata in Nupe, or sometimes tswata gbagba, 'heavy smiths', to distinguish them from the tswata muku, the brass- and silversmiths. The guild organization at large also differs in certain essentials from that of the blacksmiths. The glass-worker guild represents the most strongly organized and most conspicuously self-contained of the Nupe craft-guilds. In the whole of Nupe there exists only one group of glass-workers, the masaga, who live in Bida, in a separate quarter of the town which is named after them masaga fu, efu of the glass-workers. The beadworkers have no special workshops, but carry out their craft in the entrance hut of the compound. The weavers, called edelucizi, present another instance of the tripartite organization of Bida crafts.
