SMITHSONIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL COLLECTION. 75 



from the moulds, placed in proper situations, and burned to a hardness suitable 

 to their intended uses. Another method practised by them is, to coat the 

 inner surface of baskets, made of rushes or willows, with clay, to any required 

 thickness, and when diy, to burn them as above described. In this way they 

 construct large, handsome, and tolerably durable ware; though latterly, with 

 such tribes as have much intercourse with the whites, it is not much used, 

 because of the substitution of cast-iron ware in its stead. &quot;When these vessels 

 are large, as is the case for the manufacture of sugar, they are suspended by 

 grape-vines, which, wherever exposed to the fire, are constantly kept covered 

 with moist clay. Sometimes, however, the rims are made strong, and project 

 a little inwardly quite round the vessel so as to admit of their being sustained 

 by flattened pieces of wood slid underneath these projections and extending 

 across their centres.&quot; 4 



It would be erroneous to suppose the art of manufacturing clay vessels had 

 been in use among all the tribes spread over this widely extended country; 

 for, though exhibiting much general similarity in character and habits, they 

 difl ered considerably in their attainments in the mechanical arts. Some of the 

 Xorth American tribes, who did not understand the fabrication of earthen 

 vessels, were in the habit of cooking their meat in water set to boiling by 

 means of heated stones which they put into it, the receptacles used in this 

 operation being large wooden boAvls or troughs, water-tight baskets, or even 

 the hides of animals they had killed. The Assineboins, for example, cooked 

 in skins, as described by Catlin. 



Generally speaking, the aborigines of Xorth America acquainted with the 

 art of pottery formed their vessels by hand, modeling them sometimes in 

 woven baskets of rushes or willows, and were, as far as we know, unac 

 quainted with the art of glazing. They mixed the clay used in their pottery 

 either with pounded shells or sand, or with pulverized silicious rocks; mica 

 also formed sometimes a part of the composition. In many cases, however, 

 the clay was employed in an unmixed state. Their vessels were often painted 

 with ochre, producing various shades, from a light yellow to a dark brown, or 

 with a black color. They decorated their pottery with incised straight or 

 curved lines or combinations of lines and dots, and embellished it also by notch 

 ing the rims, or surrounding them on the outside with studs or in various 

 other ways. The vessels exhibited a great variety of forms and sizes, and 

 many of them had rounded or convex bottoms. The aborigines hardened 

 their earthenware in open fires or in kilns, and, notwithstanding the favorable 

 statements of some authors, it was much inferior in compactness to the com 

 mon ware manufactured in Europe or America. 



These remarks, it should be understood, apply to the pottery made by the 

 Indians who inhabited the eastern half of the United States. A superior kind 



* Hunter: Manners ami Customs of several Indian Tribes located west of the Mississippi, Philadelphia, 

 1823, p. :&amp;gt;9G. 



