Peddling Pottery
The Catawba potters draw from a peddling tradition with deep roots and excel at using their forefathers' bartering techniques when trading Merrell 1989 31 . The Catawba have probably always dealt in pottery. As mentioned, John Lawson noted their eighteenth-century trade in pipes. The Catawba claimed a trade network that covered the entire 55,000 square miles occupied by Catawban speakers and beyond to nations with which they maintained friendly relations. Clearly, the Indians had other viable...
The Cherokee Trade
After World War I, Americans became infatuated with the automobile. As the number of cars increased, the roads were improved, and the grid of our modern highway system began to take shape. It was not long before adventurous tourists began to straggle into the Great Smoky Mountains to visit the Cherokee Indians. Naturally, these individuals wanted mementos of Indian country. As the number of visitors grew, the enterprising Cherokee were quick to recognize and develop a market for arts and...
Building Pots
The beginning Catawba potter faces many problems, one of which is learning a wide variety of construction techniques that follow a fixed number of steps. So well established are the methods followed by the Catawba that the Indians refer to the work as building pots. Those familiar with aboriginal American pottery-making methods and who have seen the Catawba at work are aware of the antiquity of the Catawba way. So conservative is the tradition that the results obtained today are almost...
Figures
Early Brown family working at Schoenbrun Village, Ohio Evelyn Brown George picking clay in Nisbet Bottoms Larry Brown sitting inside the Blue Clay Hole Rubbing rocks used by Doris Wheelock Blue Incising tools used by Doris Wheelock Blue Edith Harris Brown building a Catawba cooking pot Basic pot made with a morsel of clay Nola Campbell holding a green ware gypsy pot Water pitchers Building a cupid jug Building a wedding jug Wedding jugs Peace pipes Bending an arrow pipe Pipes Earl Robbins with...
North Carolina Mountain Trade Ware Shapes
This trade ware, centered on the Cherokee Indian Reservation, resulted in the production of a number of forms made to satisfy the local merchants. These shapes were encouraged by the traders. They felt such things were Indian enough in appearance to attract tourists. Some popular nineteenth-century shapes such as the canoe and bookends were encouraged by the merchants. 3. candlestick with Indian head 14. diamond playing card ashtray 21. canoe with Indian head lugs pipe 22. canoe with flat...
Professionalism and the Catawba Potters
Due recognition has come slowly to the Catawba potters. The signing of Catawba pottery vessels is a relatively recent practice, and today collectors expect to see signatures on the bottom of the vessels they purchase. As is often the case, however, even the most modern Catawba innovations often have deep roots that reach into the past. Some Catawba began to write on the bottom of their vessels following the Civil War. To date, the oldest example of a signed Catawba pot was found on the old Head...
o
a. Barred oval Used by Kings Hagler and Frow to sign documents. Common motif for plain smoking pipes. b. Cross Used by some Catawba to sign documents. A reflection of the four cardinal directions and the four logs that feed the sacred fire. c. d. Swastika Used occasionally by King Hagler to sign documents. Common Catawba motif in the pinwheel version. e. Feather Favored motif among the Catawba potters. Used to decorate bonnets on Indian head pipes, a common motif on the peace pipe in this...
References Cited
Act No. 401, An Act to Settle and Regulate the Indian Trade. March 20, 1719. South Carolina Statutes at Large 3 86-96. Act No. 487, An Additional Act to an Act Entitled an Act for the Better Regulation of the Indian Trade. February 15, 1723. South Carolina Statutes at Large 3 229-232. Act No. 2831, An Act to Make Appropriations . . . 1841. Acts of South Carolina Columbia Pemberton, 1842 , pp. 146-149. Act No. 393, An Act to Repeal Section 3205, Code of Laws of South Carolina, 1942, Providing...
Conclusion
The Catawba pottery tradition is alive and well. The craft remains a strong reflection of what the Catawbas' ancestors made before the coming of the white man. The pottery is still closely tied to the Indians' economy. Today, however, the potters are amazed to learn the prices demanded by their predecessors. The smoking pipe that sold for 10 cents in 1900 sells for a minimum of 45 dollars or more today. The same is true of every other shape produced by the potters. Making Ca-tawba pottery is...
Teaching the Craft
The teaching of the Catawba pottery tradition is guarded jealously. The Indians have always been determined to keep their tribal possession in their hands. One of the major concerns among the potters regarding tribal-based research for this book was that non-Catawba might learn Catawba construction methods. It was finally decided that pottery making is widely taught at every educational level, and Catawba methods would be of little interest to outsiders Samuel Beck, interview, 3 May 1977, BC ....
Minor And Lost Clay Resources
The Catawba still know some alternate clay holes by name or vague location. Doris Blue remembered a lost clay hole I remember they used to come down below Edna's to get clay below where we lived then. Sarah Harris was a tall lady, and all the old ladies were so thin, so slim. These old ladies would come down the hill going down below Edna's to get clay and all of them would have these skirts on and long aprons. They'd go down there and get their clay, and each of them would come back with their...
Foreword
My grandmother was Georgia Harris, one of the greatest Catawba Indian potters. Before she died in 1996 at the age of 91, she asked her closest friend, Dr. Thomas Blumer, to deliver her eulogy. To those who didn't know Dr. Blumer, it may have seemed strange that a white scholar from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., eulogized an elderly Indian woman who had spent most of her life on or near the Catawba Indian Reservation in South Carolina. But Dr. Blumer is not simply a historian with...
Design Motifs
To add extra decorative elements to their wares, many Catawba potters employ incised designs. Unfortunately, while archaeologists often excavate incised Catawba pieces in their digs, to date no one has found a site that reveals the complete body of Catawba motifs. This is true even for the area within just a few miles of the Catawba Reservation and historic living sites in both York and Lancaster counties in South Carolina. In the summer of 2002, the University of North Carolina at Chapel...
Preface
This volume has been too long in the making. Aside from my own distractions coming from those wanting Catawba information from me, the task of examining issues connected to Catawba history and culture is enormous. The documentation is vast and scattered. The tradition is of great antiquity and certainly deserved the attention. Also, although the Catawba survived the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the most critical period in their history, they slipped into obscurity. As a result, it took...
A Native Resource Clay
The Catawba potters use two types of clay, pipe clay wimisuito and pan clay itoitus . Although the original Catawba-language terms are no longer common knowledge, the clays retain their separate identities. Pipe clay is often used alone but only to make small objects like pipes, hence the term pipe clay. It must be mixed with pan clay to make large vessels like pans, hence the term pan clay Harrington 1908 . Both clays are dug from pits that have been in use for a very long time, probably...
The Catawba Potters
The Catawba potters are doing much the same thing as the contemporary Alibamu-Koasati, Chitimacha, Choctaw, Creek, Louisiana Koa-sati, and Seminole by reflecting the art of the old Indians. The surviving art of these communities echoes the same ancient motifs to varied degrees. All of these tribes, like the Catawba, suffered the rapid decline of their native cultural environments to various degrees. In all cases it took four centuries for this to happen. For the Catawba, and most likely for the...
Preparing The Clay
The wooden pestle once used to beat the clay was abandoned in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The boards and shallow traylike receptacle used for beating clay, photographed by Harrington in 1903 and recalled by Doris Blue, have also gone the way of the pestle. The old beating process was replaced by window wire used to strain the clay and thus remove impurities. Some of the Indians stretch this wire on a wooden frame. Fletcher Beck made such a frame for his wife Sallie Beck. It was...
Tools
The pottery tools currently in use among the Catawba reflect an interesting mix of the ancient and the modern. Some of these objects, simple as they are, have a history of their own, are treasured as heirlooms, and can even be the subject of a family dispute. When a potter dies, the tools are divided among the survivors. Hopefully the potters are considered first, but this is not always the case. When Harrington visited the Catawba, the tools he selected to discuss were nearly all of ancient...
Discovering the Catawba
The Catawba Indian Nation of South Carolina occupies a 640-acre reservation eight miles east of Rock Hill, South Carolina. About 2,200 Indians are listed on the tribal roll U.S. Department of the Interior 2000 . Perhaps another 1,000 Catawba descendants are located outside of South Carolina in Oklahoma, Colorado, and other places. From the time of the American Revolution to the end of the nineteenth century, the tribe was dangerously close to extinction. During this period they lost most of...
Burning the Pottery
The Catawba pottery tradition finishes with the firing 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 flames of the bonfire engulf the vessels. It is a beautiful sight to see a finely crafted jar nestled in a bed of smoldering coals. No matter what one s technical...
Films And Videos
The potters have also participated in the making of films. Around i930, Frank G. Speck made a film of the Catawba at work and at play Speck ca. 1930 . Allen Stout, of the Schiele Museum in Gastonia, North Carolina, made a second film in i978. It shows Doris Blue making a snake effigy pot. In i989 it was transferred to video format, and a script has been written for incorporation so it can be used as a teaching tool Stout 1979 . Since the early 1970s, the Catawba have demonstrated before video...
The Indian Circuit
The Catawba potters have long seen the wisdom of capitalizing on their Indianness. Young and old are well aware of their historical importance. When fairs and expositions became popular at the end of the nineteenth century, the Catawba embraced this opportunity to market their wares. The tradition of attending public events to market their wares is old among the potters. In 1895, MacDonald Furman fostered the idea of exhibiting Catawba pottery at the Cotton States International Exposition in...
Historical Documentation
Scholars have a great disadvantage when trying to make progress in researching Mississippian aesthetics. Quite often the pages are nearly blank except for the work of Le Moyne and John White Lorant 1946 . Few men during the period of great decay of native cultures felt compelled to describe the Indians in any detail. It was not rare for large parties of Catawba, Cherokee, and other tribes to send delegations to Charles Town to negotiate with the colony s authorities. Notices appeared in the...
A Family Economy Based on Pottery
With the coming of the white man the Catawba faced immediate economic disaster based first on disease. When Hernando De Soto visited the Nation in 1540, contagion had already begun a catastrophic population decline Robertson 1993 83 . Most of the epidemics the Catawba Nation endured are barely recorded Dobyns 1983 , but we do know that in the smallpox visitation of 1759, the Catawba lost half their population. Periodic disasters began in 1539 before de Soto s arrival at Cofitachiqui and ended...
Recent Scholarship
In 1853, A. W. Whipple wrote his Report of Explorations from a Railway Route, near the Thirty-Fifth Parallel of North Latitude, from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. A German by the name of Heinrich Balduin Mollhausen was appointed draftsman for the project. Part of Mollhausen s task was to collect natural history specimens. In the course of his work, he made a painting of a Choctaw Indian whose face was either painted or tattooed. The vertical lines on the man s chin are of the same...
Nisbet Clay Holes
The preferred primary pipe clay source and that of most historical importance is located on the east side of the Catawba River near the village of Van Wyck. The place is central to the Waxhaw Old Fields, and the Catawba have a long attachment to it. The Treaty of Pine Tree Hill 1760 provides a clue to the solution of this contemporary attitude to- Figure 4. Evelyn Brown George picking clay in Nisbet Bottoms. Photo by Thomas J. Blumer Figure 4. Evelyn Brown George picking clay in Nisbet Bottoms....
Family Interaction
Brown family. John Brown and his sons dug the clay. Rachel Brown selected the clay to build pots. John Brown and his children scraped the vessels, and everyone rubbed. Rachel Brown supervised the entire process from digging the clay to peddling their wares in nearby towns and hamlets Harrington 1908 . The situation has changed somewhat today. The modern Catawba family is far more affluent than were those families who worked in clay before 1960. Today s Catawba have suffered from the same...