NEWS

CHAPEL HILL -- Creating pottery is a time-honored tradition among American Indians. Pottery styles, however, have changed over the years as various tribes sought to increase sales of their vessels to tourists.

In an unusual collaboration in April, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill archaeologists will share the Research Laboratories of Archaeology’s extensive collection of early pottery with Cherokee, N.C., potters interested in re-creating the pre-1900 wares.

"The significance of this program is that we are taking archaeological collections and putting them into use for the modern native community," said Dr. Brett Riggs, research archaeologist for the UNC labs and former deputy tribal historic preservation officer in Cherokee. "It’s a new use for these public resources. We hope collaboration will help dissolve long-standing barriers between native communities and archaeologists and that these materials will contribute to continuing craft traditions in the Cherokee community."

On April 11-12, Riggs will visit Cherokee with about 25 well-documented, mostly complete vessels ranging in age from about 115 to 500 years. "Potters need to see a good series of the older style pottery to gain their own intuitive understanding of it," he said. "These folks have long seen bits and pieces of old traditional pottery around their garden plots, but it’s hard to make sense of these fragments if you haven’t seen the whole vessels."

During the sessions, funded by the Folklife Program of the N.C. Arts Council, eight potters, many of whom have long family traditions in pottery, will examine and analyze the pieces for themselves. Stipends will allow the craftspeople to attend the intensive two-day event.

"This is all being done with the understanding that participants will make the information available to other potters to help build a base of information and knowledge in the community," Riggs said.

Tammy Beane, a ceramist and expert in hand-built southeastern pottery, will lead discussions on technical aspects of creating pottery.

The Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee will host the workshop. At the request of local potters, the museum will also host and fund a series of follow-up sessions to encourage local artists.

Until the late 19th century, many Cherokees in western North Carolina made their own utilitarian wares for home use, Riggs said. Those were generally large hominy jars with carved wooden paddle-stamped designs on the exterior and blackened, burnished interiors. Potters sealed the porous earthenware vessels with tasteless soot from burned corncobs, creating a kind of "Cherokee Teflon" that allowed the vessels to hold and cook liquids.

Around 1880, practical uses for homemade pottery began to wane, but potters turned to an emerging tourist market to sell their creations. Among the potters in Cherokee were several Catawba women who had long made and sold plain, polished wares to white tourists. Seeing the success and market expertise of the Catawba potters, Cherokee potters adapted Catawba styles to their own needs. Cherokee pottery now is an outgrowth of this late 19th century trend.

Some modern Cherokee potters seek to revive the older, more distinctively Cherokee ceramic styles to appeal to an increasingly discriminating art market, Riggs said. With help from UNC, the N.C. Arts Council and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, the native potters can draw inspiration and models from their ancestors’ artistry.

In a follow-up to the upcoming programs, Riggs said he expects Cherokee potters will visit Chapel Hill in the fall to exhibit an overview of Cherokee ceramics from the 16th to the 21st centuries.

"Some of these potters are descended from the folks who made the documented 19th century vessels we have in the collection," he said. "These are master potters. They know what they’re doing. We’re making the collection available so they can learn and be informed by their own ancestors’ work."

For more information, contact Riggs at (919) 962-3843 or bhriggs@unc.edu.

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Contact: David Williamson, (919) 962-8596