68 BULLETIN 134, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



to an ancient pottery form copied by the Tule potter. The same 

 divergent pattern may be noted in the effigy water canteens to be 

 described later. 



Black ware. — A good example of black ware is a cooking pot 

 of the San Bias coast Tule (Cat. No. 327346, U.S.N.M.; pi. 15, 

 No. 1), 14.5 cm. (5.7 in.) high and 21.6 cm. (8.5) wide at its greatest 

 diameter. Dr. Walter Hough, in an article on " The Ancient 

 Central and South American Pottery in the Columbian Historical 

 Exposition at Madrid in 1892," on page 341 says: 



The last step of the process rendering the clay anhydrous and durable is 

 the firing. Modern aboriginal pottery is burned in the open air by setting 

 up the dried ware, piling around it grass, leaves, or other inflammable 

 material, preferably bark, and firing it to a red heat in clear coals. The ware 

 is allowed to cool slowly in the ashes to prevent cracks. 



To secure black ware the objects are burned to a certain degree as above 

 and the fire dampened or smothered with fresh fuel, sometimes resinous, 

 producing a tarry smoke, which penerates the pores of the pottery. It was 

 usually the object to produce black ware, but frequently the dark, common 

 ware of the greater part of the United States and Africa seems to have been 

 due to imperfect firing. 



The black ware of the Darien tribes is nearly always associated 

 with the manufacture and storing of chicha, and with cooking. It 

 would seem that a resinous, tarry smoke from a smothered fire or 

 the boiling over of the chicha are contributory to the blackening of 

 the outer surface. The inner surface of most of the black ware is 

 a dark brown. 



The cooking vessel mentioned is made in the characteristic manner 

 with an annular foot with flat bottom and convex upper surface 

 tapering to a constriction as it merges into the lateral surface of 

 the globular body of the vessel. The omission of a flaring margin 

 is a departure from the usual practice of the Cuna and Tule potters. 

 The surfaces, both inner and outer are smoothed and polished with 

 a bit of calabash shell or smooth surfaced stone. 



When a pottery vessel shows a uniform dark color on its outer 

 surface, but a much lighter coloring on the inner, the presumption 

 is that through long usage smoke accretions have penetrated the 

 outer surface, as in this cooking pot, where a penetration of from 

 one to two centimeters is shown in section. Where the dark colora- 

 tion is irregular and merges into shades of brown, it is presumably 

 an adventitious coloring produced by uneven firing. 



A slip or wash with material similar to that of which the vessel 

 itself is composed is used by the Darien tribes on most of their 

 pottery vessels preliminary to a tooling or burnishing to render the 

 surface less porous. The kind of temper employed, the quality of 

 the clajr, together with the amount of effort spent in securing a 

 smooth, polished, and uniformly anhydrous surface are the indica- 



