50 ABORIGINAL POTTERY OF EASTERN UNITED STATES [eth.ann.20 



There has been much discussion regarding the prohal)le nature of 

 the mechanical appliances in use by pre-Columbian j)otters. It is now 

 well established that the wheel or lathe was unknown in America, and 

 no substitute for it capable of assisting materiall}' in throwing the 

 form or giving symmetry to the outline liy purely mechanical means 

 had been devised. The hand is the true prototype of the wheel as 

 well as of other shaping tools, l)ut the earliest artificial I'evolving device 

 probably consisted of a shallow basket or bit of gourd in which the 

 clay vessel was commenced and by means of which it was turned liack 

 and forth with one hand as the Viuilding went on with the other. This 

 device is illustrated farther on in connection with stvidies of textile 

 appliances employed in the art. 



Within the United States molds were generally, though not always, 

 improvised affairs and seldom did more than serv^e as a suppoi't for 

 the lower part of the clay vessel during shaping and finishing by the 

 modeling processes. These molds were employed either as exterior 

 or interior supports, to be removed before the baking began or even 

 before the vessel was finished. They consisted of shallow baskets, 

 sections of gourd shell, and vessels of clay or wood shaped for the 

 purpose. The textile markings so often seen on the exterior surfaces 

 of vases are not, however, impressions of baskets employed in model- 

 ing and molding, but of pliable fabrics and cords used, possiblj-, in 

 supporting the vessel while in the process of construction, but in most 

 cases as a means of shaping, texturing, and ornamenting the surface, 

 and applied by successive imprintings or malleations. This topic is 

 presented in detail toward the close of this section. 



It is apparent that the actual process of building and shaping an 

 ordinary vessel was in a general waj' much the same, no matter whether 

 it was supported by a shallow vessel serving as a rudimentary mold 

 or wheel, or whether it was the work of the hands unaided by such 

 mechanical device. The work was commenced at the center of the 

 rounded bottom, either with a small mass of clay, which was flattened 

 out and modeled into the proper curve b_v pressure of the fingers, or 

 with the end of a strip of clay coiled on itself and welded together 

 and worked into the desired form. In either case the walls were, as a 

 rule, carried upward from the nucleus thus secured by the addition of 

 strips of clay which were often so long as to extend more than once 

 around the growing rim, thus assuming the character of a coil. Coil 

 building was practiced in a very skillful manner bj' the ancient 

 Pueblos. With these people the strips of clay were cut and laid on 

 with the utmost regularity, and the edges were made to overlap on the 

 exterior of the vessel, forming spiral imbrications. In the eastern 

 United States the strips of clay were wide, irregular, and rude, and 

 were worked down and obliterated, the finished vessel rarely showing 



