CHAURA POTTERY 107 



developed a most independent and overbearing demeanour. 

 Various circumstances assist the cultivation of these traits — 

 the value in which their canoes * are held throughout the 

 Archipelago, for one ; but the most important of all is the 

 monopoly f which the island of Chaura possesses in the manu- 

 facture of pottery. 



Throughout the Nicobars there is an inherent belief that 

 should anyone — other than a native of Chaura in Chaura — 

 attempt to make a vessel of clay, he is doomed to almost 

 immediate destruction. This fate was formerly supposed to 

 follow the act of even eating food cooked in any pottery other 

 than manufactured on the island, but this part of the super- 

 stition is now losing force, and the Nicobarese freely provide 

 themselves with pots made at Port Blair. 



The women of Chaura — for the men take no part in the 

 construction of the pots — cleanse and prepare the clay, by 

 washing out the rougher particles and kneading it with fine 

 sand. The operator seats herself on the ground by a slab of 

 wood, on which she lays a ring of coco-palm pinnai neatly 

 bound together. Upon this ring she sets a shallow dish, neatly 

 lined with a circular piece of plantain leaf. With a lump of 

 clay, the bottom of the vessel to be constructed is moulded in 

 the dish, and upon this basis, by means of ropes of clay, the 

 work is built up, the operator turning the pot round and round, 

 and shaping it with her eye and hand. The vessel is set aside 

 on a platform under the hut for a day or so, to dry : only the 



* These are all imported, many in order to sell to Kar Nicobarese. 



t Pere Barbe {Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal^ 1847) mentions other monopolies : 

 lime might only be burnt at Kar Nicobar, boats built only at Nankauri, and 

 to the same island was restricted the sowing of paddy. (The last a possible 

 evidence of local Malay immigration.) 



With reference to this note, Mr E. H. Man writes : — 



" Lime (by burning certain sea-shells) can be made only in the southern 

 group, Kachal, all villages inside Nankauri Harbour — except Ong-yiiang, also 

 the villages in Dring and Expedition harbours. 



" Lime (made by burning coral) can be made only at Kar Nicobar. 



" Canoes (large and small) are made in the central and southern groups 

 where suitable trees are plentiful. 



" Canoes (small) are made at Kar Nicobar, Teressa, and Bompoka." 



