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1. Model Canoe made by a St. Christoval Native.
2. Pan-pipes. Cocoanut Drinking Vessels. Cooking-pot with Cushion and Trowel. Fan.
(All these Articles are from Treasury Island.)
[To face page 63.
The cooking-vessels in use in the islands of Bougainville Straits are circular pots of a rough clay ware, usually measuring about nine inches in depth and breadth, but sometimes more than double this size. Cleansing these vessels out between the meals is deemed an unnecessary refinement. These cooking-pots, one of which is shown in the accompanying [plate], are made by the women in the following manner: A handful of the clay, which is dark-reddish in colour and would make a good brick-clay, is first worked together in the hands into a plastic lump; and this is fashioned rudely into a kind of saucer to form the bottom of the vessel by basting the mass against a flat smooth pebble, three or four inches across, held in the left hand, with a kind of wooden trowel or beater held in the right hand. (One of these wooden trowels is figured in the [plate].) Whilst one woman is thus engaged, a couple of her companions are occupied in flattening out, by means of a flat-sided stick, strips of the clay six to twelve inches in length and an inch in breadth, their length increasing as the making of the vessel progresses. One of these strips is then placed around the upper edge of the saucer; and the potter welds or batters it into position, employing the same tools in a similar manner, the pebble being held inside. The cooking vessel is thus built up strip by strip; and to enable the worker to give symmetry to the upper part of the pot, a fillet of broad grass is tied around as a guide. An even edge is given to the lip by drawing along the rim a fibre from the cocoa-nut husk, and the interior and neck are finished off by the fingers well moistened. Whilst being made, the cooking-pot is rested on a ring-cushion of palm leaves, as shown in the same [engraving]. The time occupied in making one of the ordinary sized pots is about three-quarters of an hour. Thus made, they are kept in the shade for three or four days to become firm; and they are finally hardened by being placed in a wood-fire. No glaze appears to be used, and the vessels themselves show no signs of its employment. Their outer surfaces are indistinctly marked by odd-looking patterns in relief, reminding one somewhat of hieroglyphics, which are produced by the same patterns cut into one of the surfaces of the wooden beater (as shown in the [engraving]) for the purpose of giving the tool a better hold on the clay. Some cooking-pots, as in the case of the one illustrated, are ornamented with a chevron-line in relief below the neck and partly surrounding the vessel.[20] This ware compares but poorly with the finish and variety of design displayed by the glazed pottery of Fiji. The Fijian women, however, employ similar tools and accessories, namely, a flat mallet, a small round flat stone, and a ring-like cushion of palm leaves; but they do not appear from the accounts given of the process by Commodore Wilkes,[21] Messrs. Williams and Calvert,[22] and Miss Gordon Cumming,[23] to fashion the clay in the first place into strips. I may here refer the reader to the illustration, given by Commodore Wilkes in his narrative (vol. iii. p. 348), of pottery-making in Fiji, as it exactly suits my description of pottery-making in these islands of Bougainville Straits.
[20] Specimens of the pots, the implements, the clay, and the other accessories, have been placed in the Ethnographical Collection of the British Museum.
[21] “Narrative of the U.S. Explor. Exped.:” vol. iii., p. 348.