STEVEN-SOX] ARTS AND INDUSTRIES 



375 



placed in a vessel and covered with a cloth, where it will retain the 

 moisture until wanted for use. In beginning the work a sutficient 

 quantit}' is lirst made into a ball and then hollowed out with the tingers 

 until it assumes a conventional bowl shape, which serves as the founda- 

 tion to be afterward built up and elaborated into any desired shape. 

 The vessel is then formed by the successive additions of strips of the 

 paste long enough to encircle the bowl, each layer being pressed on 

 the brim with the fingers and accurately fitted, the trowel being then 

 skillfully used to linish the joining and to remove all traces of the 

 originalseparation of the strips. Most of the work of modeling the 

 vessel into its iinal shape is done on the inside with a trowel, this 

 implement being used on the outside chiefly to smooth the surface. 

 The clay, if it has been properly worked, possesses sufficient tenacity 

 and plasticity to admit of being pressed and scraped without cracking. 

 The completed utensil is placed in the sun for a day to dry, after 

 which it must be handled carefully until after it is baked. This is 

 nevertheless the state of manufacture in which it is to be decorated. 

 The modern ware is usually painted white, except the cooking vessels, 

 which are unpainted. A white clay is dissolved in water and then 

 made into cones which are dried in the sun. AVhen required for use 

 these cones are rubbed to powder on a stone, again mixed with water, 

 and applied in the liquid state' to the object with a rabbit-skin mop. 

 Polishing stones are used to tinish the surface. After a thorough 

 drying of this foundation, the designs are painted with brushes made 

 of yucca needles, the pigments having been ground in stone mortars 

 and made into a paste with water to which a sirup of yucca fruit is 

 added. Water from boiled Cleome serrulata (Mexican name waco) 

 is mixed with black pigment (a manganiferons clay containing organic 

 matter) in decorating pottery. Ferruginous clays which on heating 

 burn to yellow, red, or brown are employed for decorating. 



These potters do not use patterns in molding or decorating their 

 work. In manv of the pueblos the pottery is undecorated, the surface 

 being finished in plain red or black. The ware is made of a yellowish 

 clay in the manner heretofore described, and the vases are placed 

 in the sun, where they remain for some hours. They are then washed 

 with a solution of red ocher, and while wet the process of polishing 

 begins, the woman with untiring energy going over the surface again 

 and aoain with her polishing stone, every little while passing a wet 

 cloth over the vessel to keep the surface moist. When the polishing is 

 completed, the vessel is again placed in the sun for a short tune betore 

 receiving its final baking in the oven. AVhen the baking is completed, 

 the vessels that are to retain the reddish color are removed, while those 

 that are to be black remain in the ovens, which are then covered with 

 a quantitv of loose manure. The fire is so smothered by Uiis process 

 as to produce a dense smoke, and it is this smoke absorbed mto the 



