﻿NOTES ON THE POTTERY INDUSTRY IN SAN NICOLAS, 

 ILOCOS NORTE 



By Emerson B. Christie 



(From the Museum, Bureau of Science, Manila, P. I.) 



Three plates 



Pottery of some sort is in use in every household in the 

 Province of Ilocos Norte. The principal objects are cooking 

 pots, which are also used for carrying and storing water ; tobacco 

 pipes; hearths or stoves; extra large jars for molasses or basi 

 (a fermented drink made from sugar cane) ; various sorts of 

 bowls; linings for wells; and bricks. Pots, jars, pipes, and 

 stoves are in practically universal use. Thus, although the 

 money value of pottery used in any one house is small, the sum 

 total for the province amounts to a considerable investment. 



Part of this money goes out of the province. The large 

 jars mentioned are not, as far as I know, made in Ilocos 

 Norte. Some come from Manila and a good many from Vigan, 

 Ilocos Sur, as containers of molasses or unrefined sugar. There 

 are in Vigan a number of Chinese who manufacture these 

 large jars. 



The manufacture of bricks and pipes in Ilocos Norte is 

 diffused among several towns. Laoag, the capital, and San 

 Nicolas make bricks; Piddig and San Nicolas make pipes. 

 But the manufacture of by far the largest class of earthenware 

 used in the province, namely, cooking pots, is almost entirely 

 confined to San Nicolas. I venture to say that if statistics 

 on the subject were available they would show that four-fifths 

 of all the pottery made in Ilocos Norte, as reckoned in money 

 value, is produced in this town. 



San Nicolas is a town of some eleven thousand inhabitants, 

 situated almost directly across the river from Laoag. Its lands, 

 as at present cultivated, do not suffice for the inhabitants, and 

 several hundred persons derive their means of subsistence in 

 whole or in part from the manufacture of pottery vessels, 

 especially those for cooking and for holding water. 



Bricks are made to a limited extent, mostly for local use. 

 Those I saw were poorly molded, and seemed to be poorly baked 



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