67 
1888.] A. Rea— P re-historic Burial-places in Southern India. 
black, and the ontside red. Straw is commonly used for the burning of 
some potter’s work,and'it may possibly have been used for those now under 
notice. Most of these articles are either round or pointed on the bottom, 
and, if kept upright in the kiln, would require a support to steady them. 
If so, they might have been placed in the kiln in some sort of soil or clay 
bed ; this would partially protect the lower portion of their outer sur¬ 
face from the heat. The fire in burning would play freely on the inner 
exposed surface and the upper outer surface ; these would thus be sub¬ 
jected to a more intense heat than the partially-protected bottom. 
Burned in this way, a certain heat would give the red colour, and a 
greater would burn black ; the exact proportion of heat would leave the 
bottom red, the other flame-exposed portions black, as we now find them. 
One chatti already referred to (PI. XI, fig. 43) would seem to bear out this 
theory. It is a red colour almost throughout, with two small portions 
of the upper surface showing black blotches. It appears as if the heat 
had not been sufficiently intense to fully blacken the top, and the fire had 
been banked or gone out, just as the black was beginning to appear, or 
before the temperature had been sufficiently high to give it the required 
shades. In regard to this matter I made inquiries of some native pot¬ 
ters in Madras, as to the black and red colours and glazing of the jit¬ 
tery. I showed them a specimen, and asked if they could explain the 
colours and glazing, and jDroduce something like it. I was told they 
could do so, and that the black colour was caused by a nut rubbed on 
the surface ; a greater or less coating of the nutty substance giving a 
more or less thickness of black in one material, hence the merging of 
the black into the red.^ The glaze was said to be produced by a species 
of nut likewise rubbed on the surface, and a certain degree of fineness 
could be given by burning the material with paddy husks or seed chaff. 
To test these statements, I asked a man to come and make a piece of 
pottery before me, which should have all the peculiarities of that from 
Madura. He offered to come, and did come, but I regret the wetness of 
the weather prevented his attempting it, 
I have since been favoured by Government with the loan of a pam- 
phletf on some investigations conducted in the Salem District. Men¬ 
tion is therein made of red, and also black pottery some are said to 
have been black outside and red inside, and vice versa ; but it is not 
clearly stated, if the two colours occur on one side of the same piece of 
pottery, as in the Madura examples. They had a glossy surface, and 
some were “ ornamented with transverse lines ” similar, I presume, to 
* lb. 
f Report on Tumuli in the Salem District , by the Rev. Mr. Philips, 1872, 
J lb. p. 5, paragraph II, 1. 
