Southwest Pottery Today

For nearly two thousand years pottery has been made and used in the American Southwest. The technology probably came to this region from Mexico where its history is much older and where its form as sculpture was more evolved. In the Southwest, pottery's principal use in the past was as a container and it is the continuance of the tradition of painted pottery that is the focus of this issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS.

Pottery developed in the Southwest among agricultural peoples. Here two types of farming societies flourished. Along the Rio Grande River in New Mexico and on the Colorado Plateau in Arizona and New Mexico are found the remnants of a culture the Spaniards termed "pueblo." To the west and south astride the Gila, Salt, and Colorado Rivers pottery is made by agricultural groups which scholars today term "rancheria" peoples.

"Pueblo" is the Spanish word for town and today most pueblos are referred to by the patron saint of the mission church established there by the Spaniards. Several hundred years ago Pueblo culture encompassed a much larger area than that in which it is found today. Contact with the Spaniards in 1540 ended any possible resurgence of Pueblo culture and brought substantial change to the Indian cultures. Contemporary Pueblo people belong to one of four language stocks and traditionally practiced dry and irrigation farming.

The "rancheria" people of Arizona were characterized by a subsistence pattern which stressed seasonal irrigation agriculture along desert river courses. These tribes lived not in compact villages or towns, but rather on widely scattered farm sites. The best known of these Rancheria people are the Pima/ Papago, the Maricopa, the Yuma, the Mohave, and the Cocopah.

Today Southwestern Indians manufacture pottery in much the same fashion as they did centuries ago. Then, as now, the potter's wheel was unknown. Similarly pottery has remained primarily a woman's task, although a few notable exceptions from Santa Clara and San Ildefonso Pueblos will be cited below.

The manufacture of pottery begins with the collection of the raw materials. Clay is dug from local deposits and is later cleaned and pulverized. This processed clay is then mixed with a grit or temper. In some pueblos the temper used is that of old pot sherds or ground pieces of vessels broken in firing. A mixture of clay, temper and water is then kneaded to a desired consistency. No written recipes are consulted, only the feel of the clay/temper/water mixture guides the potter.

Pottery vessels are constructed by building up successive layers of rope-like coils of clay. The clay coils that make up the vessel walls of Pueblo pottery are then scraped to a uniform smoothness by gourd scrapers. Rancheria potters smooth out the coils by patting the exterior walls with a curved paddle, while bracing the inner walls with a mushroom-shaped anvil. Today such modern conveniences as commercial clays and sand and emery paper have been adopted by some Southwest Indian potters.

After a vessel is smooth and dry its surface is slipped with a finely ground clay/water mixture that resembles a thin soup. Then smooth river stones and/or pieces of leather or cloth are used to polish the surface. Most Southwestern Indian pottery is still fired on open grates over a low burning fire. Cakes of dried animal manure are placed over the vessels being firedand allowed to burn. Generally Pueblo firing lasts less than three hours at an approximate temperature of 1500° Fahrenheit.

By Patrick T. Houlihan Director Heard Museum, Phoenix There are a number of exceptions to this general description of firing. One is the use of electric kilns. Though not widely employed, many young Indian pottery students are using such kilns in their school classes. A second exception is that which yields the famous blackware produced at San Ildefonso and Santa Clara pueblos. Black pottery results when the fire is smothered with finely ground manure. The smothering causes a "reducing" atmosphere in which the trapped carbon colors the surface of the pottery black.

The art in traditional Southwest Indian pottery is to be found in both the shape and technical execution of the vessel as well as with the surface treatment. Generally the shape of a vessel is symmetrical. With bowl-shapes the inner surface should be as well-formed as the outer surface.

Surface treatment is the principal key to identifying the tribal or pueblo affiliation of any piece of traditional Southwest pottery. The most easily recognized of the surface treatments are the polished and white wares of the New Mexican pueblos. Polished wares are found in the Tewa pueblos of San Juan, Santa Clara and San Ildefonso. Here the surface slip is highly polished prior to firing giving the pottery of these pueblos a distinctive sheen. San Juan red pottery is also noted for incised design elements usually geometric and usually confined to the top third of the vessel. Frequently these incised pieces of San Juan pottery glisten from the mica flecks present in the clay. Better known however for the use of mica clays is the nonpolished pottery of Taos and Picuris pueblos to the north.

Santa Clara pottery is distinctive for its surface treatment both as to color and design styles. Among the more common Santa Clara designs are the "bear paw" imprint and the deep carvings of the serpent design. Both Santa Clara and San Ildefonso are noted for their blackware produced by the "reducing-