Fig. 58
The Indians moulded all sorts of things out of clay besides these utensils. Drums were made by stretching buckskin over the tops of earthen pots. Then there were whistles and rattles, trowels, modelling tools, figures of men and animals, and many toys like those shown in Figs. 57, 58 and 59. Beads were also made of clay, and so were tobacco pipes in many shapes. One would have the face of a man on the bowl, another a goat with open mouth, or a bird with its neck outstretched and bill parted, and on another the bowl would be formed by a natural-looking snake coiled up for a spring.
Fig. 59
In time men learned more about clays and how to mix and form and bake them, until now, as you know, pottery that is beautiful and serviceable is made all over the world, and in great factories china and porcelain made of the finest clays are moulded, decorated and fired for our use. It will be interesting to you sometime to see one of the factories where such ware is made, but although it is so fine and smooth and perfect and so useful to us, I doubt if the workmen who make it have half the pleasure in their task that the first potters had in moulding their rough cooking utensils and clay pipes. So I am glad to think that although you may never be able to make china, you can work in clay as the Indians used to do, for that you will enjoy far more.
Fig. 60
Fig. 61
Of course you would like to make something that you can use, something that will not crumble and break like the things you modelled in kindergarten. To do this you will need to get a clay which can be baked—or fired, as potters express it—and you must have a clay that is so mixed or arranged as to bake well in the kiln (or pottery oven) to which you are going to send it. If you live near a pottery where flower pots or gray stoneware are made you can probably arrange to buy your clay there, and after your pottery is finished have it baked at the same place. The clay that is used at a stoneware pottery is arranged so as to fire at a much greater heat than the flower-pot clay, and so the ware is stronger, but the flower-pot ware will be strong enough for the things you will make. Although this clay is gray before it is baked, it comes from the kiln a beautiful Indian red.