because of the amount of paste in it, has a tendency to contract more than the bottom of the side. The next greatest strain is at the bottom of the side, where the paste must adjust itself to the contraction in the base as well as to that in the body of the vessel. The body and lip have the least strain, for the contraction may be compensated for by a slight settling of the paste. It is in the base, therefore, that cracks usually occur, and then near the centre of it, since that is the point of greatest strain. The size and quantity of the cracks are an indication of the amount of temper still needed to make the paste of just the right consistency. If there are many small cracks, or a single serious one, the piece may be discarded entirely, to be broken up later, and re-used in moulding. If a crack is not serious, it is filled as follows. With a small sliver of wood, or the end of a case-knife, the paste on the edge of the crack is forced down into it, first on the interior and then on the exterior; little pellets of paste are then added and pressed into the crack until it is filled. Final smoothing with the finger or the kajepe completes the obliteration.
Small vertical cracks near the base of the body probably also indicate faulty mixture of the paste. The potters, however, say that these fine cracks are caused by a vessel’s drying too quickly in the sun, and insist that if it had been allowed to dry slowly in the house, they would not have appeared. Such cracks are too fine and too numerous to warrant the careful filling of each one; so accordingly the surface is merely dampened, some soft paste is added and rubbed in with the fingers or the kajepe.
Cracks running downward from the rim are exceedingly rare. The women of San Ildefonso make no attempt to repair them, but occasionally cut down the vessel to a smaller size. In the single instance noted[37] the crack was first traced downward from the rim until its end was located upon the neck, then the upper part of the neck was cut off below the end of the crack. It was thus possible to use the base of the olla as a large bowl. A line parallel with the rim was marked about the circumference of the neck with a lead-pencil. This line was incised with a penknife, and gone over again in order to deepen it. A second line was incised around the neck about three-sixteenths of an inch nearer the rim. Then the paste between these two lines was dug out with great care, forming a V-shaped groove ([pl. 20], a). This groove was cut through about one-half the thickness of the wall all the way around the neck. Then at one point the wall was pierced, and, from there around, the groove was deepened by long and short strokes of a knife pulled toward the body until the wall had been cut through for about three-fifths of the circumference. The remainder broke away easily. The raw surface of the new rim was then softened by the application of water and smoothed with the fingers. The potter said this was the usual method of treating a rim crack.
SCRAPING
The purpose of this process is twofold, to improve the surface of the vessel by removing the marks left by the kajepe and the puki, and to thin the sides, thus reducing the weight of the finished piece. It is usually begun the day following the completion of the moulding and sun-drying, unless other duties, such as planting, harvesting, and the like, force a postponement. Large vessels such as ollas are allowed to dry nearly forty-eight hours before they are scraped. At San Ildefonso vessels are made in quantities ranging from a dozen to fifty pieces. The moulding and drying of the entire group, a process which may extend over a period of several days, is entirely finished before the scraping is begun.
There are three steps in the scraping: the wetting, the actual scraping, and the smoothing of the surface. The implements employed are a wet cloth and a scraper. The latter is either the top of a baking-powder can, or a kitchen case-knife. The can-top seems to be the more popular because it may be used on nearly any type of curve on the vessel. The informants said that their people formerly used potsherds, stones, or broken animal-bones as scrapers, in fact anything that had a suitable edge; the potsherds were sharpened and straightened by rubbing them on coarse sandstone.
When the vessel is brought in from drying, it is easily lifted from the puki, since the layer of ashes or temper prevents sticking. A small olla or bowl is held upon the left knee, with the mouth tilted to the left and away from the body. A bowl is held with the left hand, the fingers on the interior, the thumb on the exterior of the lip. The exterior surface of the vessel is then softened by wiping it with a wet rag. This step is omitted by some potters always, by others only when the vessel needs a small amount of scraping. The scraping itself is begun while the surface is still damp. The scraper first touches the vessel near the shoulder. The work then continues toward the base by means of short, quick strokes taken toward the body. As the work advances the upper part of the bowl is turned away from the body, that is, the vessel turns counterclockwise. When the ridges marking the former position of the edge of the puki are being destroyed, care is taken to keep the curve of the side uniform from the base to the shoulder. If the scraping discloses an impurity, such as a stone fragment in the paste, it is removed; the resulting irregularity is filled with a pinch of soft paste, and smoothed over. The strokes of the scraper are usually approximately parallel to the rim of the vessel. The upper part is scraped as far as the surface remains convex. In bowls the scraping is done to the very rim. In both large and small ollas with flaring lip, the scraping continues only to the base of the flare. The interiors of vessels, even of wide-mouthed bowls, are never scraped. When a bowl requires little scraping to make the surface uniform, it may be finished in from three to five minutes. Those which are too
PLATE 19
a. Scraping an olla after sun-drying; the implement used is an ordinary kitchen case-knife.