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12 Burning the Pottery The Catawba pottery tradition ¤nishes with the ¤ring process, or burning as the Indians call it, yet as a rule, few outsiders have watched this dramatic event. Realizing the importance of the burning, the potters describe the process for the curious and sometimes provide a video. There is no substitute though for watching the ®ames of the bon¤re engulf the vessels. It is a beautiful sight to see a ¤nely crafted jar nestled in a bed of smoldering coals. No matter what one’s technical understanding might be, it is always a marvel that a vessel can be taken from such a violent situation ready for use. The vessels leave the ¤re ready to sell. It might be desirable to dust each piece lightly with a clean rag, but this step is hardly necessary. Not even the ¤re’s soot clings to the pot. In its dramatic metamorphosis, the vessel has risen above the ¤re. While the Catawba burning process can be a joyous affair, there is no more empty feeling than that experienced when the potters hear a¤re-engulfed vessel crack with a metallic ping. All of the potters learn to live with the reality of the ¤re’s dangers. Each one of them has waited patiently for the right moment to retrieve a load of wares from the coals only to discover that a prized piece is damaged. The Catawba have always been reluctant to sell broken pieces, and family members are quick to claim pottery that can be displayed but not sold. Earl and Viola Robbins cleverly save such pieces and present them as gifts to children who accompany their parents to the Robbins home to buy pottery. The Catawba potters have shunned the European kiln for over 300 years. This device, if used, would destroy the character of their wares. The contemporary ¤ring method, however, is a mixture of aboriginal technology and modern innovation. Harrington was ¤rst to note the rather complicated history of the Catawba burning method. To his dismay, the potters were accustomed to using the hearth. In order to meet Harrington’s desires to see a purely aboriginal ¤ring process, the Figure 64. Burning pottery. (Photos by Thomas J. Blumer) a. Top: Vessels engulfed in ®ames. b. Bottom: Vessels nestled in cooling ashes. a. b. Brown family staged an outdoor burning (Harrington 1908). Additional changes have occurred in the Catawba method of ¤ring in the last 90 years. BONFIRE The Catawba potters used a simple bon¤re to burn their pottery, from the most ancient times until around 1900. The bon¤re remains crucial to the appearance of Catawba pottery, but the ¤re has undergone some historic changes during the last century. Harrington’s notes provide the only extant description of the process as recalled by John and Rachel Brown: The ¤rst step was to prop the vessels up around the ¤re, their mouths toward the blaze. . . . Here they remained for two or three hours, a peculiar black color spreading over them as they grew hotter. When this color had become uniform—a sign that they were hot enough—John [Brown] raked the blazing brands out of the ¤re and inverted the vessels upon the coals and hot ashes . . . which were then pushed up around them and the whole covered quickly with pieces of dry bark pulled from old pine stumps. . . . When the bark had burned away, the red-hot vessels were pulled out and allowed to cool slowly around the ¤re. One had cracked, as predicted, and all the pieces were more or less mottled by drafts. The black color of the ¤rst heating, however, had given place to the typical reddish yellow of Catawba pottery. (Harrington 1908:405) THE HEARTH Although Harrington was not interested in the contemporary Catawba use of the hearth, it was hardly a modern innovation for the Brown family. In the middle of the eighteenth century, King Hagler wrote Governor Glenn to send a man who could build a chimney (Wyle 1759:485–486). The Indians had already realized that a hearth and its accompanying chimney were preferable to a blazing, smoking bon¤re in the middle of the home. While 1759 might be considered a rough date for the introduction of the ¤replace among the Catawba, the date for its adoption as a tool in the pottery tradition will always remain speculative. As late as the 1840s, the Catawba were described as living in temporary camps. Such families probably continued...

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