276 POTTERY OF THE ANCIENT PUEBLOS 



around this center with admirable rapidity and dexterity, describing a 

 spiral. From time to time they dip their fingers into the water, which 

 they are always careful to have near them, and, with the right hand, 

 they flatten the inside and the outside of the vase, which without this 

 would be uneven. In this way they make all kinds of earthen utensils, 

 dishes, plates, bowls, pots, and jugs, some of which hold as much as 40 

 or even 50 pints. This pottery does not require much preparation for 

 baking. After having dried it in the shade, they make a large fire, and 

 as soon as they think they have enough embers they clean a place in 

 the middle, and, arranging the pieces of pottery, cover them with char- 

 coal. It is thus that the pieces are given the necessary heating (cook- 

 ing), after which they are as strong as our pottery. There is no doubt 

 but that we must attribute their strength to the mixture which these 

 women make of powdered shells with the earth which they employ." 1 



Professor C. F. Hartt has furnished many facts in regard to the manu- 

 facture of pottery by the Brazilian Indians. According to his account 

 the women of Santarem model the bottom of a vessel from a lump of clay 

 in the usual way. Then "a piece of clay is rolled under the hand into 

 a long, rope-like cylinder. This rope is then coiled around the edge of 

 the bottom of the vessel, being flattened sidewise by pinching with the 

 fingers of the left hand, and caused to adhere to the bottom. On this, 

 coil after coil is laid in like manner, each being flattened as before. 

 After a few have been added they are worked into shape with the fingers, 

 which are occasionally moistened in water, and the irregularities pro- 

 duced by the coils are caused to disappear. The vessel is formed by 

 the hand alone and the surface is smoothed down by means of a bit of 

 gourd or a shell, which is from time to time dipped in water. If the 

 vessel be large it is now set away in the shade for a while to dry a little, 

 after which new coils are added as above, no other instrument being 

 used except the hands and the gourd or shell, with which alone the ves- 

 sel may receive not only an extremely regular form, but also a very 

 smooth surface. * * * The coils are so worked together that from 

 a simple inspection of the vessel it is impossible to determine how it 

 was built up. I should never have suspected that the pottery of Pacoval 

 had been made by coiling, were it not that I found the coils still un- 

 united on the inner surface of the heads of idols." 2 



Prof. Hartt states, also, on the authority of Dr. de Magalhaes, that 

 the pottery of the several tribes of the Araquaya River is always made 

 by coiling, the surface being worked down by the hand and water and 

 the aid of a spoon-like trowel made of bamboo. Humboldt makes a 

 similar statement in regard to the tribes of the Orinoco. 



Mr. E. A. Barber 3 relates, on the authority of Captain John Moss, a 

 resident, for a long time, of southwestern Colorado, that the Ute In- 



■Mernoires sur la Louisiana. Butel-Dumont. Vol. II, pp. 271-273. Paris, 1753. 

 '-Hartt: American Naturalist, February, 1879, pp. 83-86. 

 'Barber: Americau Naturalist, Vol. X, p. 412. 



