In Volume 1, of this work, on page 26, is presented the classification of the Nomenclature Committee with reference to pottery, which covers, as a matter of course, all the specimens illustrated in this chapter.

While it is true that a great deal of pottery has been taken from mounds, graves, cliff-houses and ruined pueblos by expeditions under my direction, yet I have never made a detailed study of ceramic art in America, although in a certain sense familiar with the forms found throughout this country.

It would be presumptuous for one to write of a certain phase of archæology that has been more ably and exhaustively treated by some one who is a recognized authority. And in pottery we have two scholars, whose explorations and studies place them first, Professor W. H. Holmes and Mr. Clarence B. Moore. Professor Holmes’s “Aboriginal Pottery of the Eastern United States”^[29] will be taken as the last word on the subject. And Mr. Moore’s eighteen reports of explorations in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi illustrate all the forms in clay found in that extensive region.

There is in the United States no collection of Southern mound pottery equal in extent to that obtained by Mr. Moore. His explorations have been of great benefit to science, and it is no exaggeration to state that his works shed very great light on prehistoric art as well in pottery as in other materials.

Therefore, I have quoted by permission from both Professor Holmes and Mr. Moore, and made use of numerous illustrations from their reports, including the outlines of types prepared by the former.

Pottery may be said to be the barometer indicating the culture stage of any people. In the far North there is no pottery. In the St. Lawrence basin pottery is insignificant. In New England the few artistic specimens of decorative pottery have been made much of by observers, but these rare examples of the ceramic art indicate progress on the part of a few individuals. There was no real potters’ art north of the Ohio River or east of the Wabash. True, there are some good examples of fine pottery from the Ohio mounds, but the ancient Northern peoples made but little progress in ceramic art save on the part of a few individuals living in the Scioto Valley, southern Ohio. In the Iroquois country it appears that the natives were on the verge of developing art in pottery, and had they remained in their barbaric splendor two centuries longer, it is quite likely that they would have made remarkable advance in the potters’ art. Much of their pottery is decorated, but it is crudely so. Their pipes of pottery were highly developed, ornate, and interesting. But these have been considered under the chapter devoted to pipes and smoking customs.

So far as I am aware, the Wabash River in Indiana marks the farthest north, of Southern types of pottery. There may be a few strays now and then, but the cemetery explored by Mr. Anderson for Mr. Peabody, at that place, brought to light more than one hundred jars, bowls, and effigies, all of distinct types. (A few are shown in Fig. 681.) Elsewhere north of the Ohio and east of the Wabash, I have not known of effigy pottery being found.^[30] Throughout the Ohio Valley there are some fine specimens of ceramic art found in the mounds. But the pottery, as a rule, between the Wabash and the Alleghenies is of the Fort Ancient culture. Some of it is shown in Figs. 648, 649.

At the great cemetery at Madisonville, Ohio, the pottery does not exhibit skill in modeling or high finish. All the pottery of this great region appears to be crudely made, of inferior materials, tempered with pulverized unio shells or sand. In Indiana and Illinois there are occasional effigies found in the mounds, but one must pass to the Cumberland and Tennessee valleys, and to the St. Francis basin of Arkansas, to southeastern Missouri, and to the region about Memphis and Nashville for the highest ceramic art of the Southern Mound-Builders. These people were peculiarly skilled in the potter’s art, and all the museums of the country are filled with their handiwork. Professor Holmes has commented on it at great length in the publication cited. The potters’ art was highly developed in regions explored by Mr. Moore, as is attested by the specimens presented in Figs. 678, 670–673. But effigy pottery in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama is rarer than in Arkansas and Missouri. On the contrary, there is more decorative pottery (with incised lines, tracings of snakes and birds) in the region explored by Mr. Moore than in the middle Mississippi Valley.

Through the Great Plains there is a dearth of pottery. The buffalo hunters had little need of it. The cemeteries and mounds of the Indian Territory and Oklahoma, and of that long stretch of country flanking the Arkansas River, produce good pottery, but not comparable with that of the stone graves and mounds of the central South.

Northwestern California, the entire Rocky Mountains present an anomaly in archæology in that no pottery—save here and there a stray—is found. The Cliff-Dweller country, by which I mean the Colorado River Valley, including its tributaries, abounds in pottery of the highest type found on the American continent.

But while admitting that the Cliff-Dweller pottery was superior in finish, material, and form of bowls, bottles, and dishes, yet the effigies of the South and the middle Mississippi Valley are superior to effigies found in the Cliff-Dweller country.

The uses of pottery are primarily domestic. Whether bowls, jars, and other forms were used as receptacles in which to boil or stew or bake matters not. Man invented pottery because it was more convenient for him to make a receptacle out of clay and bake the clay than to hollow a bowl out of stone. He moved in the line of least resistance, and it was easier to make a bowl or a dish from clay than to carve such a utensil from stone. While Indians roasted much of their meat on the end of sticks, or baked the food in the ashes, yet they preferred to boil and stew their foods. This is especially true of the established villages where a profusion of pottery fragments abounds. It is natural to suppose that as the ceramic art developed, to the variety of forms in clay, man added the dish, the waterbottle, the effigy, and more or less complicated forms of the jar or the bowl. And because nothing but true cooking-pots are found in the Lake Superior region, New England, the Delaware and Susquehanna valleys, I claim that the pottery art was not developed in those regions beyond the manufacture of rough utensils to be used about the fire. And although there is some mound pottery in Ohio of such finish and character as to designate it as above, and pottery was made use of in the culinary arts, yet these examples are rare and denote rather a high culture in a certain locality than proficiency in ceramic art. It is only in the central and southern portions of the Mississippi Valley and in the Cliff-Dweller country that pottery-making became an art.

Indeed in the Tennessee stone graves, and at the village at the mouth of the Wabash River in Indiana, there have been found numerous clay rattles and clay toys. The latter take the form of small bowls and dishes. With them are frequently small clay pebbles. These little clay toys are buried with skeletons of children ranging from two to six years of age. It is remarkable that these people, whom we have considered as in the middle stage of barbarism, should have invented the toy. It is quite probable that the women who made these clay dishes were not influenced by knowledge of similar things in use among Europeans, for the Tennessee graves and the Wabash cemetery appear to be prehistoric. Such discoveries as the presence of these dishes alongside of little children suggest that we should go slowly in our statements that most of the time of the aborigines was given up to warfare and barbaric ceremonies. We know not the whole story of their daily life, but every year there are additions to the sum of human knowledge, and such finds as I have enumerated emphasize the human side of these people.

The ceramic arts among the aborigines embrace not only clay forms used in cooking and ollas for cooling, rather common in hot countries; but also effigies were made of clay, there were clay spindle-whorls, also clay rings, discs, and objects we know not the use of. Clay beads have been found in a number of places. Illustrations, with brief descriptions, are presented of all these clay things. It is quite likely that on the large village-sites in the Tennessee and Cumberland valleys, extending from central Kentucky to central Tennessee and northern Alabama, many sun-dried clay objects, or objects imperfectly burned, have disappeared through climatic agencies. I have remarked on the importance of comparing historic sites with prehistoric sites and have insisted that this should be done. I shall show, in the chapter cited above, that the prehistoric as well as the modern Indians selected the most favorable localities for villages; therefore modern villages were often built on the site occupied by a prehistoric building. The presence of stone, clay, bone, and shell objects on these sites indicates that the population was greater in prehistoric times than in modern. The fabrics and the wooden objects of ancient times have long since disappeared, as have most such things of even two centuries ago. It is observed on many sites that there are no shell objects even in the ash-pits, and few bone objects.

I take this to mean that such sites are the oldest of all. The things that are preserved are only those of such substances as resist atmospheric agencies. If one will study a village-site, walking back and forth across the ploughed field for hours,—as I have done,—one will observe that there are pieces of pottery of firm texture. There are other pieces of pottery ready to disintegrate. The same is true of shells. While one’s conclusions as to pottery are based upon the specimens he finds, yet I do not consider it at all visionary to assume that forms in clay, other than pottery, were in use among the Indians. I, myself, have picked up fragments of pottery in such disintegrated condition that they could be crumbled up between the thumb and index finger.

The range of pottery in America both north and south is from the rudest, thick, clumsy bowl, such as has been found in Kansas or Nebraska or in certain parts of New England, to the highest art of the ancient Cliff-Dwellers. I do not say highest art of the Pueblo people, for the modern Pueblo art does not equal that of the ancient Pueblos or Cliff-Dwellers. It must be remembered, when studying American pottery, that although a bowl from Arkansas, a bottle from Mississippi, a dish from Tennessee, or a pitcher from New Mexico may be of similar form and like pottery found in Greece, Egypt, or Europe, yet this American pottery has such an individuality of its own that the museum curator can at once distinguish the one from the other. Truly American pottery is different from that found elsewhere in the world. It may seem a paradox and yet it is true that while the bowl from Missouri and the bowl from ancient Rome may be of the same form and size, there is a peculiarity observed in the American specimen that enables one to set it aside as distinct and peculiar to the American aborigines. One could assemble and mingle in a museum a thousand vessels, jars, and bowls from all over the world, remove all the labels, and yet the students of American ceramics would at once pick out those that represent American art.

Professor Holmes, in his publication previously cited, divides the pottery of the United States into seven groups:—

Middle Mississippi Valley Group.

Upper Mississippi Valley, or Northwest Group.

Ohio Valley Group.

Iroquoian Group.

Atlantic Algonquin Group.

South Appalachian Group.

Gulf Coast Group.

About the pottery of New England he states:—

“The vessels were mere pots, and the pipes, although sometimes ornamented with incised lines and indentations, are mainly the simple bent trumpet of the more southern areas. The clay is tempered usually with a large percentage of coarse sand, the finish is comparatively rude, and the ornament, though varied, is always elementary. The surfaces have, in many cases, been textured with cord-covered paddles, and over these, or on spaces smoothed down for the purpose, are various crude patterns made with cords, bits of fabric, roulettes, and pointed tools of many varieties. The use of the roulette would seem to link the art of this Abnaki region very closely with that of the middle Atlantic States and portions of the upper Mississippi region.”

In New Jersey, in the Chesapeake region, the pottery-ware is to a large extent of Algonquin type, although some Iroquoian wares are found.

As in the case of New England, the forms are simple, the pottery crudely made. But of course there are found fragments exhibiting considerable skill in manufacture. These may be exotic types, and their presence due to knowledge of the art of more advanced tribes, or to barter or exchange.

The lower Mississippi mounds furnish some very superior pottery, though many of the bowls, dishes, and jars taken from the mounds of that region are no more skillfully made than those of the St. Francis and Cumberland valleys. There are some examples of black pottery, very highly finished, found along the Red River. Professor Holmes says of these:—

“The most striking characteristics of the better examples of this ware are the black color and the mechanical perfection of construction, surface finish, and decoration. The forms are varied and symmetric. The black surface is highly polished and is usually decorated with incised patterns. The scroll was the favorite decorative design, and it will be difficult to find in any part of the world a more chaste and elaborate treatment of this motive.”

Professor Holmes devotes special attention to the southern Appalachian stamped ware. Most of the specimens in the Smithsonian came from the Savannah River Valley. Mr. Moore has dug up a great deal of this pottery along the Atlantic seaboard. The designs are stamped by means of a paddle. Professor Holmes gives us the following description:—

“Although some of the peculiar designs with which the paddle stamps were embellished may have come, as has been suggested, from neighboring Antillean peoples, it is probable that the implement is of Continental origin. It is easy to see how the use of figured modeling-tools could arise with any people out of the simple primitive processes of vessel-modeling. As the walls were built up by means of flattish strips of clay, added one upon another, the fingers and hand were used to weld the parts together and to smooth down the uneven surfaces. In time various improvised implements would come into use—shells for scraping, smooth stones for rubbing, and paddle-like tools for malleating. Some of the latter, having textured surfaces, would leave figured imprints on the plastic surface, and these, producing a pleasing effect on the primitive mind, would lead to extension of use, and, finally, to the invention of special tools and the adding of elaborate designs. But the use of figured surfaces seems to have had other than purely decorative functions, and, indeed, in most cases, the decorative idea may have been secondary.

“It will be observed by one who attempts the manipulation of clay that striking or paddling with a smooth surface has often the tendency to extend flaws and to start new ones, thus weakening the wall of the vessel, but a ribbed or deeply figured surface properly applied has the effect of welding the clay together, of kneading the plastic surface, producing numberless minute dovetailings of the clay which connect across weak lines and incipient cracks, adding greatly to the strength of the vessel.

“That the figured stamp had a dual function, a technic and an esthetic one, is fully apparent. When it was applied to the surface it removed unevenness and welded the plastic clay into a firm, tenacious mass. Scarifying with a rude comb-like tool was employed in some sections for the same purpose, and was so used more generally on the inner surface, where a paddle or stamp could not be employed. That this was recognized as one of the functions of the stamp is shown by the fact that in many neatly finished vessels, where certain portions received a smooth finish, the paddle had first been used over the entire vessel, the pattern being afterward worked down with a polishing-stone. However, the beauty of the designs employed and the care and taste with which they were applied to the vases bear ample testimony to the fact that the function of the stamp as used in this province was largely esthetic.”

Of the life element in decoration on pottery, Professor Holmes writes at some length. He assembled a number of vessels on which were various decorations representing man, quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, batrachians, and fishes. “The conclusion reached is that there is at least a large degree of consistency, and that particular forms of creatures may be recognized far down the scale toward the geometric. Exceptions were noted, however. The symbols are occasionally intermingled, as if the significance of the particular forms had been lost sight of, the potter using them as symbols of the life idea in general, or as mere decorations.

“As a rule, the incised designs are more highly conventional than the plastic, the eagle and the serpent being the only incised forms, so far as has been observed, realistically treated; but it was possible to recognize others through their association with the modeled forms. In vessels furnished with the head of a bird in relief, for example, the same kind of incised figures were generally found around the vessel, and these are recognized as being more or less fully conventionalized representations of wings. The same is true of the fish and its gills, fins, and tail; of the serpent and its spots and rattles, and of the frog and its legs. The relieved figures, realistically treated, become thus a key to the formal incised designs, enabling us to identify them when separately used. It will be seen, however, that since all forms shade off into the purely geometric, there comes a stage when all must be practically alike; and in independent positions, since we have no key, we fail to distinguish them, and can only say that whatever they represented to the potter they cannot be to us more than mere suggestions of the life idea. To the native potter the life concept was probably an essential association with every vessel.”

All writers on pottery observe a great difference between the ware of the North and that of the South. Professor Holmes points to this in more than one place in his writings, and he asks this question: “Is it due to differences in race? Were the Southern tribes as a body more highly endowed than the Northern, or did the currents of migration, representing distinct centres of culture, come from opposite quarters to meet along this line. Or does the difference result from the unlike environments of the two sections, the one fertile and salubrious, encouraging progress in art, and the other rigorous and exacting, checking tendencies in that direction? Or does the weakening art impulse indicate increasing distance from the great art centres in the far South, in Mexico, and Yucatan?”

The antiquity of pottery in this country is a question of absorbing interest. Perhaps the shell mounds of Florida shed more light on this question than do other remains. Mr. Clarence B. Moore, who has explored for several seasons, and thoroughly opened numbers of shell mounds, states that sometimes there was no pottery in the lower layers of some of these mounds. This would indicate that some of the shell mounds are very old, and had been in use before the discovery and utilization of pottery by our aborigines. I regret that I have not space to quote Mr. Moore’s remarks at length, but must refer readers to his reports, which take up this important question in detail.

Mr. Brown reports on the pottery of his region as follows:—

“About thirty-five specimens of the earthenware vessels of the Wisconsin Indians are now in existence. Most of these have been described and figured in the Wisconsin Archeologist. The largest of these vessels in the J. P. Schumacher collection at Green Bay is twenty inches in height and twenty-two inches in diameter at the widest part. It has the great capacity of two and one fourth bushels. The smallest specimen is in the H. P. Hamilton collection and is of about the size of an ordinary cup.

“Other pottery objects found in Wisconsin include pipes, a few beads, and perforated discs made of potsherds.”

I am indebted to Professor Holmes for Figures 637 to 646, 659, 660, 662 to 667, 675, 677, and to Mr. Moore for Figures 668 to 674.