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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



the Catawba. 1 - Inquiry revealed the fact that while they had ap- 

 parently never heard of gourd smoothers, the Cherokee formerly 

 used mussel shells and a marine shell, probably some species of 

 cardium for this purpose. Iwi herself sometimes used a chip of 

 wood in making large vessels. 



After drying — a process that takes from one to three days, 

 depending on the weather — the vessel was carefully rubbed and 

 polished on the inside, and on the outside whenever necessary 

 [pi. 7] with the smoothing stone kept wet by continual dipping 

 in water. 



When a number of vessels had been made and dried the next 

 step was to prop the vessels up on their sides around the fire, mouth 

 toward the blaze, until a faint brown color, beginning near the 

 fire crept over the whole of the vessels — a sign that they were 

 hot enough for firing. Then the potter, with a long stick, rolled 

 them over mouth down upon the embers [pi. 9] and covered them 

 with pieces of dry bark to the depth of 2 or 3 inches. Mak- 

 ing sure that the bark had caught fire all around [pi. 10] she 

 left them to their fate. About an hour later the bark had burned 

 away leaving the rounded bottoms of the pots protruding through 

 the ashes. Then, taking her long hooked stick, Iwi rolled the 

 vessels from the fire, tapping them sharply to detect cracks. If a 

 vessel rang clear it was perfect. 



" In order to be good for cooking, these pots should be smoked," 

 she said. " If this is not done the water will soak through." So 

 she dropped a handful of bran in each one while they were still 

 almost red-hot, stirred it with her stick, tipped the pots this way 

 and that, and finally, turning out the now blazing bran from each 

 in turn, inverted the vessels upon it. In this way the inside was 

 smoked black and rendered impervious and this without leaving 

 any odor of smoke in the vessels when they became cold. Gen- 

 erally, Iwi told me, corncobs were employed for this purpose, but 

 she always used bran when cobs were not available. This prob- 

 ably explains the black color of the inner surface so often seen in 

 New York aboriginal pottery. 



I was told that in later times the firing has been generally done 

 indoors, because an absolutely still day was necessary for a suc- 

 cessful burning in the open air, any breeze being liable to crack 

 the vessels. The firing of my pottery was, however, done out of 



'Harrington. Catawba Potters and their Work. Am. Anthropology, Sept. 

 1908. 



