[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.
[22] “Fiji and the Fijians:” 3rd edit., 1870, p. 60.
[23] “A Lady’s Cruise in a French Man-of-War:” London, 1882, p. 247.
It will be interesting, perhaps, to briefly notice some of the gradations in the art of pottery manufacture amongst the savage races in this quarter of the globe. A very simple method, as recorded by Captain Forrest[24] more than a century ago, was employed by the women of Dory Harbour, New Guinea. They formed “pieces of clay into earthen pots; with a pebble in one hand to put into it, whilst they held in the other hand, also a pebble, with which they knocked, to enlarge and smooth it.” The natives of the Andaman Islands[25] advance another step in the process. We learn from Mr. Man that the only implements employed are, an _Arca_ shell, a short pointed stick, and a board. The clay is rolled out into strips with the hand. One of these strips is twisted to form the cup-like base; and the pot is then built up strip by strip. The method employed by the natives of Bougainville Straits in the Solomon Group, may be considered to be an improvement on the plan adopted by the Andaman Islanders. As already described, they also fashion the clay into strips and build up the vessel in a similar manner, but in the employment of a special implement as the wooden beater, in the use of the ring-cushion, and probably in the more artistic details of the process, they make a nearer approach than do the Andaman Islanders to the pottery-making of the Fijians. Then we come in the ascending scale to the method employed by the women of the Motu tribe around Port Moresby, New Guinea. By the Rev. Dr. W. Turner,[26] we are informed that they use a round smooth stone and a wooden beater but no cushion, the vessel being made without the aid of strips of clay into two pieces, the body and the mouth, which are moulded together. This method, as employed by the Motu women, may not be superior to that followed amongst the women of Bougainville Straits; but inasmuch as the former manufacture three kinds of vessels, one for holding water, another for cooking, and a third to be used as a plate, whilst the latter confine their art to the cooking-pot, I have assigned the first place to the former.[27] From the work of the Motu women to the pottery of the Fijians, and between the different processes employed, there is a considerable advance in the art of pottery manufacture, as already described in the case of Fiji. There, a glaze is for the first time employed; whilst in their finish, their comparative elegance of design, in their multiplicity of pattern, and in the various purposes for which they are employed from the cooking-pot up to the ornamental jar, these Fijian vessels are greatly superior to all I have referred to, whether the work of a woman of Port Dory, of an Andaman Islander, of a woman of Bougainville Straits, or of a woman of the Motu tribe in New Guinea.[28]