CHAPTER XI

INDIAN POTTERY

In no other country can primitive pottery be so conveniently studied as in ours. Within our borders, he who digs may read the history of clay-working from the earliest days. Those who are denied this study at first hand will find in museums plenty of material—quaint bowls and jars, some of them smoke-stained and cracked, but all wonderfully well preserved when one thinks of their age. From the rudest pots, made by inferior tribes, we can trace the progress of the craft gradually advancing until, in the pottery found in or near Mexico, we see what may be considered the masterpieces of American ceramic art.

In the United States, the pottery of the Pueblo tribes ranks first, and, close to that, the charming wares of the Mississippi Valley and Gulf Coast.

There are many tribes which are still practising the craft, some following the old methods, while others, influenced by the white man, are making ware of little interest to the student of primitive pottery. The Indians of the Pueblo country are using almost the same processes as those of ancient days.

The pottery of different sections of the country varies in material, form, colour, and decoration. That the ware of a certain tribe was crude and imperfect does not necessarily indicate that the people who made it were inferior in culture, but that the natural conditions were not favourable to pottery-making. A tribe living near clay-beds would as naturally make good pottery as one around whose homes materials for basket-making grew in abundance would excel in that craft. Perhaps, on the whole, the pottery of the South is more advanced than that of the Northern tribes, probably because of the difference in climate. While the people of the North were wandering hunters for the most part, those of the South were more prosperous and stay-at-home, and would be likely to have more wants than the Northern tribes, with leisure to gratify them.

As to the uses to which the Indians put their pottery; most of the pieces show with simple straightforwardness what purposes they served. In only a few cases is there any doubt—notably some spool-shaped articles of clay, found in the Ohio Valley. At first, pottery was chiefly used for the storing, cooking, and carrying of water and food; taking the place, in some degree, of vessels of wicker, horn, and stone. This has always remained its most important function. Earthen vessels were employed in religious and other ceremonies, and earthen tools were often made, while there are, besides the myriads of pipes, a host of small clay vessels and figures which were evidently toys or used in games (See Figs. 53 and 54). It is interesting to note the difference between our cooking-pots and those of this primitive people. Theirs have almost invariably a round or cone-shaped base (See Fig. 55), which Prof. W. H. Holmes explains was natural, as, among barbarous nations, hard, level floors were the exception, while those of sand and soft earth were the rule. Under those conditions, the rounded base would be much the best. In putting the pot over the fire, the fuel or other supports kept it in position. Often cooking-vessels were made with short, strong handles (See Fig. 56) or a flaring rim, so that they could be conveniently swung over the fire with vines or cords. In certain parts of the country where the Indians made salt by evaporating the water from saline springs, large vat-shaped vessels of clay are found which were evidently moulded for the purpose. They are peculiar because of their size and the great thickness of the walls, while almost invariably they have, on the outer surface, markings which seem to have been impressed with a woven fabric.

Other Indians made maple sugar, using earthen vessels to collect and boil the sap.

Numbers of the early writers tell of the use of clay vessels for drums, and earthen whistles and rattles are common to-day (see Figs. 57 and 58).

A curious-shaped implement, somewhat like a toadstool, was evidently a modelling tool—to support the walls of a partially stiffened piece of pottery from within, while the outer surface was finished with other tools.

In the lower Mississippi Valley clays were employed in plastering the walls of cave dwellings, as well as for the floors.

As burial urns, pottery bowls and vases were often made use of. Not so often, however, for holding the ashes of the dead as for the skull and other bones, which were crowded into a single jar, or bowl, such as was common in the household. This was covered with a smaller vessel (see Fig. 59). Sometimes several of these bowls surrounded and covered the bones. Occasionally, an earthen casket seems to have been made especially for the purpose. There have been found, beside these burial vessels in the Indian graves, smaller receptacles for food, and even rude toys. The latter were usually animal forms—figurines, images of fish, turtles, and birds. It is surmised that these were offerings made with the expectation of their being of service to the dead in a future life.

Unlike the Egyptians, the Indians made little use of clay in moulding beads and other personal ornaments. They evidently did not find it gay enough in colour, not knowing the secret of the brilliant enamels with which the early Egyptian potters coated their clays. Pipes, while they were often made of stone and other substances, were in some parts of the country moulded from clay, and ranged in form from a simple tube to curious and grotesque shapes. Those made by the Iroquois were particularly elaborate—a head of an animal or bird formed the bowl, or a snake coiled about it (see Fig. 60).

One would have thought that, in making their clay pots, which were primarily planned to serve useful purposes, and were, moreover, somewhat perishable, no attention would have been given to decoration; yet this is far from being the case. Bowls, cups, and cauldrons, water-jars and bottles (see Figs. 61 and 62) were often elaborately incised with beautiful and intricate designs. The forms, too, were simple and good.

The clay used at first was such as could be found almost anywhere near the surface, and consequently was full of impurities. Later, however, clean clays were much sought after, and no pains were spared to grind and work them into good condition. This was done with the feet or hands, or both. As the craft advanced, potters began to temper their clay with other ingredients, according to the use to which the vessel was to be put. For instance, the clay for toys and the smaller vessels needed no tempering. Pipes were made of such clay, or of one tempered with a finely ground substance, while cooking-pots and cauldrons, which were subjected to constant heat, were made of clay containing a large amount of coarser tempering ingredients. Some of the tempering agents were rock, sand, pulverised shell, bits of baked pottery, cinders, ashes of bark, and even raw vegetal materials. The heat at which the pieces were fired was rarely strong enough to change any of the mineral substances in the clay.

In shaping the pieces, the fingers did the work unaided, except where a basket or gourd was used as a mould, or where such simple tools as could be fashioned of clay, stone, or shell were employed. A piece of a gourd was sometimes held against the inner wall to support it while the outer surface was being scraped and smoothed with these rude tools.

The bottom of the piece was formed either from a small lump of clay patted and moulded into proper shape by the fingers, or with the end of a clay strip which was coiled around on itself. In whichever way the bottom was begun, the walls were made of coils of clay. The ancient Cliff Dwellers, or Pueblos, used this method very skilfully. Their strips of clay were cut and coiled with great exactness, and the edges overlapping on the outside made spiral markings. There are no evidences of anything like the potter’s wheel, the nearest approach being the basket-mould, which was probably turned with one hand as the coil of clay was applied with the other.

The markings of cords and weaving which are often seen on the outer surfaces of Indian pots and vases were probably made by pliable fabrics, which were used to support the piece as it was formed. Woven textures were also wrapped over the hand, or a tool, to impress the wet clay, and cords wound about paddles or other tools made similar impressions. In some cases, the outer surface was rubbed smooth with the fingers and thumb, or with a stone; in others, the coil structure is plainly seen. After the body of the piece was finished, the rim was perfected, and the handles, legs, or other parts in relief were applied. These were made separately, and were attached by pressure and rubbing.

In decoration, the potters of each tribe had different ideas, as well as tools and devices for working them out. The fingers and nails were used to produce certain effects, and tools of various kinds were made for special purposes—pointed ones for incising, gouge-like tools to scrape away the clay, and all kinds of stamps for impressed designs. Some of the stamps were in paddle form (such as we use for making butter-balls), others were thin disks with indented edges, which were rolled over the soft clay surface.

Incised designs were perhaps the most usual, though colour was often employed in decorating the ware. Especially was this the case in the Pueblo country and in Arkansas. The colours were white, brown, red, and black, and they were mostly powdered clay, sometimes mixed with ochres. The surface of the piece first received a wash of fine paste, and afterward the colours, ground fine and mixed with water, were applied with the finger or a piece of reed-grass. The designs were generally made by the women. Circles and curved designs were most used, probably because they could be made with such freedom, in contrast to the slow and painstaking process of weaving right-angled designs into baskets.

The pottery was dried in the shade, in the sun, or before the fire, and afterward baked more or less thoroughly. Some tribes—the Catawbas, for example—simply baked their ware before the fire, while others covered the pieces with burning bark or other fuel, surrounding them evenly with it inside and out. The pieces were protected from contact with each other by broken pieces of pottery. They were carefully kept from draughts during the firing and the first part of the cooling, for fear of cracking.

Among the Cherokees, a glossy black was given to the inner surface of the pottery by what was known as smother-firing. When the process of baking, just described, was completed, the vessel was turned bottom up, over a small hole in the ground, which had been filled with burning corncobs. From time to time the fuel was renewed until in half an hour the inside of the piece had become glistening black.

It is to be regretted that, among the Indians, this art, like that of basketry, is passing. The coming of civilisation has brought iron and tin cooking-vessels and ordinary tableware to take the place of the bowls, platters, and cups, the jars and bottles of clay, so full of individual charm. Not only to the collector and the student of ethnology is Indian pottery of value; the potter of to-day finds much that is helpful and suggestive in primitive processes, as well as in the forms and decoration.

A study of the range of shapes and designs in Indian pottery is a revelation to many who have thought of the Indian as an ignorant savage. Aside from its beauty and decorative value, the uses to which Indian pottery can be put in our homes are many. The great bowl shown in the plate suggests one delightful way of utilising this ware. Foliage plants of any size, from a tiny cactus, which seems to find a bowl with a rounded base the most comfortable of abiding places, to a great spreading fern, harmonise with the Indian colours. So will flowering plants, except those which have red, pink, or purple blossoms; and what a relief these plant-bowls are to the eye after some of the jardinières one sees!

Large bowls are useful, too, for holding fruit on the porch of a country house, while smaller ones serve as nut-bowls. Low plaque-shaped pieces make excellent card-trays, and the small bowls hold matches. There are curious little pieces in the form of shoes made by the Indians of New Mexico. These also are useful for matches or cigar ashes (see Fig. 63). Last and least, though only in size, is the toy pottery—money-banks in the form of well-fed pigs, whistles, and toy dishes, cups, jugs, and plates—bewitching alike to little girls and big. A few of them are shown in Figs. 64 and 65. They are Indian red and creamy yellow in colour, with designs of black, and rarely are two of them alike.

Fashions change in pottery as well as in other things, and freakish forms which please us to-day may be ridiculed to-morrow; but primitive wares have an enduring value. Pieces that were moulded for service, by potters whose love for nature and its beauties must needs express itself even on the decoration of a cooking-pot, will last long after the ware that is made only for money has gone back to the ground from whence it came.

Modern American Pottery