The Potter's Wheel 149 



of invention undoubtedly rests with the Near Eastern nations." This 

 indeed is all that from an historical point of view could be stated. 



The making of pottery may well be called a universal phenomenon, 

 despite the fact that there are many areas inhabited by peoples not 

 acquainted with the art. It is unknown to the natives of Australia, 

 New Zealand, and all other island groups of the South Sea populated 

 by Polynesians 1 (while it thrives among the Melanesians), to the 

 Negrito of the Philippines, to numerous primitive tribes of the Indo- 

 Chinese, 2 to the inhabitants of the Himalaya (with the exception of 

 the Nepalese), and to many nomadic and hunting tribes of Siberia. 3 

 It is further absent in the extreme southern parts of South Africa and 

 South America, also in the whole north-western portion of North 

 America. Among the polar peoples, pottery has hardly any impor- 

 tance. Of the Eskimo, only the western group in Alaska makes (or 



1 With the exception of Easter Island, where pottery is used for the cooking of 

 certain foods (A. Lesson, Les Polynesiens, Vol. I, p. 457; Vol. II, p. 282). It is 

 difficult to accept the oft-repeated statement that the Polynesians do not make 

 pottery for want of proper clays in their habitats. There surely is workable clay 

 in New Zealand and Hawaii; but whether there is or not, I believe with E. B. Tylor 

 (Primitive Culture, Vol. I, p. 57), that, "as the isolated possession of an art goes 

 to prove its invention where it is found, so the absence of an art goes to prove that 

 it was never present: the onus probandi is on the other side." 



2 Thus the Lo-lo have never produced pottery (A. F. Legendre,' Far West 

 chinois, T'oung Pao, 1909, p. 611). 



1 It is particularly lacking among the present-day tribes of the Amur, also 

 among the Gilyak and Ainu. Hu K'ang-tsung, who as Chinese ambassador in 

 1 125 visited the Kin or Djurchi, observed that the latter made no vessels of clay, 

 but only wooden cups and plates coated with a varnish (Chavannes, Voyageurs 

 chinois, Journal asiatique, 1898, mai-juin, p. 395). The same observation still 

 holds good for all Amur tribes, which during historical times appear never to have 

 manufactured pottery. The Japanese traveller Mamiya RinsO, who visited the 

 island of Saghalin in 1808, reports that the forms of the clay vessels and porcelains 

 of the Gilyak (Smerenkur) resemble Chinese and Japanese ware (P. F. v. Siebold, 

 Nippon, 2d ed., Vol. II, p. 233). The question is here of imported Chinese articles, 

 and the observation is of no great consequence. Nevertheless L. v. Schrenck 

 (Reisen und Forschungen im Amur-Lande, Vol. Ill, p. 448) has based an elaborate 

 speculation on this passage, ascribing the manufacture of crockery and porcelain ( !) 

 to the Olcha and Gold on the Amur in the first part of the nineteenth century, and 

 making the Manchu-Chinese Government responsible for the forcible destruction 

 of this industry. This is a fantasy of the worst kind, for which no foundation exists 

 in the history of the Amur tribes. What the Chinese colonists manufactured in 

 Manchuria was only crude pottery; contrary to what is asserted by L. v. Schrenck, 

 porcelain was never made there. The term "porcelain" used in Siebold's transla- 

 tion of Mamiya RinsO's account with reference to a kiln in the village Kitsi, on the 

 right bank of the Amur, as usual in such cases, rests on a mistranslation. It is of 

 greater importance that the Japanese traveller tells us of earthen pots six to seven 

 inches in diameter, with loop handles on both sides, made at his time by the Ainu 

 of Saghalin. There is indeed reason to believe that the Ainu formerly made a rude 

 and primitive kind of pottery. From the lips of an Ainu seventy years old, on the 



