cushino.i POTTERY AFFECTED BY ENVIRONMENT. 495 



POTTERY INFLUENCED BY MATERIALS AND METHODS USED IN 



BURNING. 



Other influences, to a less extent local, bad no inconsiderable effect 

 on primitive Pueblo pottery: materials employed and methods resorted 

 to in burning. 



Only one kind of fuel, except for a single class of vessels, is now used 

 in pottery-firing; namely, dried cakes or slabs of sheep-dung. Anciently, 

 several varieties, such as extremely dry sage-brush or grease- wood, 

 pifion and other resinous woods, dung of herbivora when obtainable, 

 charcoal, and also bituminous or cannel-coal were employed. The prin- 

 cipal agent seems, however, to have been dead-wood or spunk, pulver- 

 ized aud moistened with some adhesive mixture so that flat cakes could 

 be formed of it. I infer this uot alone from Ziini tradition, which is 

 not ample, but from the fact that the sheep-dung now used is called, in 

 the condition of fuel, leu ne a, while its name in the abstract or as sheep- 

 dung simply is ma he. Dry-rot wood or spunk is known as led me. In 

 the shape of flat cakes it would be termed /.« mo we or leu me a, whence 

 I doubt not the modern word leu ne a is derived. 



Of methods, four were in vogue. The simplest aud worst consisted iu 

 burying the vessel to be burned under hot ashes and building a fire 

 around it, or inverting it over a bed of embers aud encircling it with a 

 blazing fire of brush-wood, as is still the practice of the Maricopas and 

 other sedentary tribes of the Gila. The most common was building a 

 little cone or dome of fuel over the articles to be baked aud firing; the 

 most perfect was to dig or construct under ground a little cist or kiln, 

 line it evenly with fuel, leaving a central space for the green ware, and 

 slowly fire the. whole mass. 



Irrespective of the kind of fuel used, the baking by ash-burial made 

 the ware gray, cloudy, or dingy, and not very durable. Pottery burned 

 with sage or grease-wood was firm, light gray unless of ocherous clay, 

 less cloudy than if ash-baked, yet mottled. Turf and dung, although 

 easily managed, did not thoroughly harden the pottery, but burned it 

 very evenly ; dead wood or spuuk-cakes baked as evenly as any of the 

 materials thus far mentioned, and more thoroughly than the others. 

 Resinous or pitchy woods, while they produced a much higher degree 

 of heat, could be used only when color was unimportant, as they still are 

 used to some extent in the firiug of black-ware or cooking pots. The 

 latter, while still hot from a preliminary burning, if coated externally 

 with the mucilaginous juice, of green cactus, internally witli piuon gum 

 or pitch, aud fired a second or even a third time with resinous wood- 

 fuel, are rendered absolutely tire-proof, semi-glazed with a black gloss 

 inside, and wonderfully durable. Tradition represents that by far the 

 most perfect fuel was found to be cannel coal, and that, where abundant, 

 accessible, and of an extremely bituminous quality, it was much used. 



