Native American Pottery

[BigDaddyCaine]

I like to study native american history and their ways of life. I thought i would post a few threads on how they lived. For this thread i will show how they made pottery. If you get cold this winter you can try and fire your own pottery. Its fun, especially if you live in a state with lots of clay, like kansas. Better dig it up now though so its not frozen over in the winter. I like to fire clay and do other things like metal working in the winter. Nothing like sitting by a hot fire playing around in the winter.

NATIVE AMERICAN POTTERY

To start, pinch your thumbs into the center of a ball of clay. Squeeze your thumb on the Inside with your fingers on the outside of the pot. Continue squeezing and rotating the pot until the walls of the vessel are about 1/4 in. thick. Fix any cracks which form by firmly pinching together the void and smoothing it over.

Place the base in a hollow in the ground, or in a bowl shaped vessel which can be rotated easily by the potter as the pot is built up.

Pots of New England Indians were built up from coils or ropes of clay. The coils ore rolled between the palms of the hands or rolled against a flat surface in a back and forth and center to ends direction. Coils range from 1/2 to 1 inch in thickness.

To be joined properly, the coils should be roughened using a moistened stiff brush. This helps seal out any air when the calls are squeezed 10gether, and helps keep the coil moist while it is being added to the pot.

Add a coil. one foot or longer, around the inside rim of the pot being held in its support.

The coils must be firmly joined to the pot or cracks will appear when the pot dries. Attach the coil to the pot using your thumb to press downward against the coil on the inside of the pot. At the same time pull upward with your fingers on the outside of the pot. This will actually weld the coils together. If the coils are not well joined. cracks will appear as the pottery dries.

Join coils in A spiral direction until a rough form of the pat is made, or until the addition of more moist coils will cause the pot to slump under the weight. If the pot dents when it is tapped, let it dry until it feels like leather, and does not dent easily. When the pot is leather-hard, the pot is paddled with a cord-wrapped stick. Paddle the pot to its final form using a smoothed cobble on the inside of the pottery wall for support. Paddling helps compress and strengthen the clay and decorates the outside of the pot with cord marks.

A smooth, flat scraping tool may be used on the pot to compress cracks or smooth the pot for more decoration.

After drying slowly for several days, pottery is ready to be baked in a fire. On a windless day, a shallow pit is dug (1) and a preparation fire is built to warm the pots next to and to preheat the rocks (2) which the pottery will rest on during their firing. After the first fire has burned to ashes, the warmed pots (3) are placed upside down without their sides touching. Thickly split hardwood (4) is placed in a teepee style over the pots. Quicker burning thin kindling (5) is put under the pots and over the sides of the thicker wood. The temperature of the fire can reach 1500 degrees or more. Avoid any rapid temperature changes and allow the fire to burn down after 1 1/2 hours. Bank the fire with wet leaves or grass and then cover over with light sod, leaving a small smoke hole in the top. Allow this to cool for an hour before removing pots. In contemporary firings, a few tin sheets (6) will protect pottery from smoke and fire. Tin cans (7) can also be substituted for rocks.

[knowbody0]

1. sweet secrets of living in peace with the world

[Paradise]

2. Nice! I like it! Thanks. :) n/t