POTTERY, PRIMITIVE. Receptacles of some kind are essential to man, however primitive, and are made of basketry, skins, gourds and other suitable natural objects. But over all these pottery has an advantage, for it can be brought into contact with fire and not be destroyed, and it is therefore valuable for cooking purposes. Pottery-making is not universal, however; partly because its construction is not easily carried on under cer tain cultural conditions, e.g., a nomadic life; partly because it depends upon suitable materials being available, though some times potters obtain their clay from other districts. It is absent from large regions of America, and in certain islands of the west Pacific has become a lost art. The knowledge of pottery-making was, at one time, believed to mark a stage in the cultural develop ment of mankind, but its presence among such peoples as the Andamanese, Eskimo, Bushmen and Hottentots, and its absence among the advanced Polynesians, makes this questionable.
The manufacture of pottery falls into five stages : preparing the body or raw material ; shaping the pot ; drying and firing it ; decorating it ; and varnishing or in some other way rendering it non-porous. This last is often lacking in the pot-making of primi tive peoples, but the other four processes are found in the manu facture of the simplest wares.
As regards the raw material, it seems that the clay is frequently dug and seasoned for a while before using. Clays vary very greatly. Those which are highly plastic and hold the water, though con venient for working, are liable through excessive shrinkage to crack in the drying or firing of the pot and must therefore be opened by mixing them with non-plastic materials. Sand is often used to this end, or carbonaceous materials such as chopped grass, cinders, dried cow or donkey dung; frequently old potsherds are ground up for this purpose. In mixing the body, the propor tion of clay, opener and water necessarily varies greatly and is judged empirically by the potter.
far the most common. The tools used are few : a wooden beater and large smooth stone for shaping the vessel; a wooden, bamboo or shell knife or scraper for smoothing the surface of the pot ; a pebble, coarse brush of fibre or, in Africa, piece of leather for polishing; and a receptacle for water with which to keep the clay moist. The work is usually done on a wooden platter, or the base of an old pot may be used. Sometimes a thick ring of fibre is used as the base. In shaping a pot by hand two techniques, though often combined, must be distinguished : modelling and coiling. The simplest way in which a pot is modelled is that used by the women of the Baronga in South Africa. Having kneaded the body into a very soft ball the woman "makes a hole in it, a wide opening which she enlarges by degrees, hollowing it out more and more and gradually giving it the shape she wishes. . . . It is astonish ing to see the beautiful symmetry of these utensils, although these pots are fashioned without the aid of wheel or measuring instru ment of any kind." (H. Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe.) Often the fingers are supplemented by the use of a wooden beater and a large rounded stone which is held on the inside to offer resistance. If the pot is to be a big one, the initial lump of clay may not be enough and more is added to build up the walls of the vessel. Not infrequently the pot is modelled in parts, which are then welded together.
In the coiling technique the raw material is rolled out into a slender rope which is coiled upon itself, each coil overlapping the last more and more as the curve of the pot is formed (fig. I). The coils are carefully worked together with the fingers and the unevennesses smoothed away, so that, when the pot is finished, no trace of them is visible except occasionally in faint ridges on the inner surface. This method is particularly common in the Americas, and is also found in East Africa and parts of New Guinea and the west Pacific. The modelled and coiled techniques may be combined; the base of the pot, or even the lower part of the belly as well, is modelled from a lump and the rings or coils built up on this.