iS2 Beginnings of Porcelain 



character of a potter's wheel is known among the inhabitants of the 

 Andaman group. 1 Or, to cite another example, the Negroes of Africa 

 have always remained unacquainted with the wheel, though they might 

 have learned its use from the ancient Egyptians, or at a later time from 

 the Arabs. The sporadic occurrence of the wheel in the Malayan 

 Archipelago indicates its introduction from outside. It is found only 

 in Padang Lawas on Sumatra and on Java; 2 while in all other Malayan 

 regions, including the Philippines, pottery has remained in the stage of 

 handwork, and is the lot of woman. The Yakut, the most intelligent 

 and progressive people of Siberia, never avail themselves of the potter's 

 wheel, nor do they know of any process of glazing vessels. Despite 

 the fact that they intermarry with the Russians, and that on the 

 market of Yakutsk wheel-made Russian crockery is offered for sale, 

 they still adhere to their primitive mode of fashioning vessels solely 

 by hand, the only implement that is used being a half-round or round 

 smooth stone, with which the interior of the pot is shaped and smoothed. 

 Instead of securing Russian ware, they prefer to purchase the raw clay 

 material (at from five to ten kopeck a pound), and entrust it to a 

 skilful woman potter, together with fragments of old broken pots, which 

 are pounded and mixed with the fresh clay. According to Saroshevski, 3 

 to whom we owe a detailed description of the process, also the illus- 

 tration of a Yakut potter at work, these products come very near to 

 those of the stone age. In their crude technique, they form a curious 

 contrast to the excellent iron-forged work and wood-carving for which 

 the same people are reputed. 



While ethnologists have clearly recognized that the pottery-making 

 of primitive peoples is essentially a woman's avocation, it has not yet 

 been sufficiently emphasized that the wheel is a man-made invention, 

 and that, aside from the mere technical difference of the hand and 

 wheel processes, there is a fundamental sociological contrast between 

 the two. Among the Indian tribes of America, the fictile art was 

 woman's occupation, and such it is at present. In discussing the 

 methods of primitive pottery, O. T. Mason 4 observes, "It will be noted 

 that the feminine gender is used throughout in speaking of aboriginal 

 potters. This is because every piece of such ware is the work of woman's 

 hands. She quarried the clay, and, like a patient beast of burden, 

 bore it home on her back. She washed it and kneaded it, and rolled 



1 E. H. Man, On the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, p. 154. 



2 Encyclopaedic van Nederlandsch-Indie, Vol. Ill, pp. 321, 322. 

 * The Yakut (in Russian), Vol. I, p. 378. 



4 Origins of Invention, p. 166; see also his Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, 

 p. 91. 



