In speaking of New Caledonia Baron L. de Vaux (L. de Vaux, "Les Canaques de la Nouvelle-Calédonie," _Rev. d'Ethnog._, ii., 1883, p. 340) says, "formerly the women of Pouébo, Oubatche, and Pam had the monopoly; now the art tends more and more to disappear as the natives find it more practical to buy trade vessels. They succeeded in making pots to the height of two feet, and very often decorated externally with lizards and frogs in relief. The base being ready, they superimpose rings of well-prepared clay the one above the other, holding them and joining them from the interior with the left hand, whilst they smooth their work externally by means of the right hand and of a little beater of smooth, hard wood."
Mr. Atkinson (J. J. Atkinson, "Notes on Pointed Forms of Pottery among Primitive Peoples," _Journ. Anth. Inst._, xxiii., 1893, p. 90) also describes the New Caledonian method of making pottery, and draws attention to the fact that the occasional traces of faint horizontal marks occasioned by the technique "imitate the marks left by pottery made on the system of plastering wickerwork employed by some people," and therefrom he suggests a necessary warning not to take the latter method as having been of universal occurrence.
Earthen vessels are comparatively easy to make, and though they are brittle, their fragments, when properly baked, are almost indestructible. The history of man is unconsciously written largely on shards, and the elucidation of these unwritten records is as interesting and important as the deciphering of the cuneiform inscriptions on the clay tablets of Assyria. The Book of Pots has yet to be written, but materials for its compilation lie scattered throughout the great literature of archæology, anthropology, and ceramics, and in the specimens in a multitude of museums and collections. The scientific treatment of the subject has been sketched out mainly by W. H. Holmes and F. H. Cushing, and I have not hesitated to borrow largely from the publications of these American anthropologists.
There are three principal methods of making clay vessels--1, by coiling; 2, by modelling; or 3, by casting.
In the first method longer or shorter rope-like pieces of clay are formed. These are laid down in a spiral, and the vessel is built up by a continuation of the same process.