Chinook Indian Talk

Pottery kilns and Shoto clay figures

From: tenas
Date: 4/17/2003
Time: 6:37:45 AM
Remote Name: 137.53.105.80

Comments

Steady and Rasalon,

Yes, it has been kinda’ quiet. Maybe all the information accumulating here has made it easier for the school kids to find what they’re looking for. It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of those “tell me about their houses” posts. Keep up the good work gang.

I hadn’t heard about pottery kilns at Cathlapotle. Were ceramic shards or pots found at the site to confirm them as “pottery” kilns?

Where did you hear about these kilns? Could you share a little more info?

As Rasalon suggests, it would be interesting if there were any connection with the Shoto clay figures. I had always thought that the Shoto clay figures were fired at a very low temperature, as if they had just been set within an open wood fire. The use of a kiln for those figures would seem unlikely.

With that said, I will now wander off into the realm of speculation without foundation. My 2 cents in this case is greatly devalued by my total ignorance of these discoveries at Cathlapotle.

First, when a technology develops independent of outside influences it tends to follow a logical evolution. The logical precursor to the kiln would be some form of earthen baking oven. In which case you would need a product to bake within the oven. In Central America, Mexico, and the desert Southwest, the cultivation of corn had a hand in developing the ceramics industry.

Pottery also needs a non-transient population. It doesn’t hold up well “on the road.” For the Chinooks, who moved from site to site, woven baskets were much more practical containers. And, as you know, they became incredibly skilled at weaving their baskets.

So, what was going on at Shoto and apparently Cathlapotle? It would seem either an outside influence had circumvented the evolution of technology or we are misreading the archeological evidence.

The former of these two possibilities may have occurred at Shoto. It is suggested that the village was named after an individual [his name is sometimes rendered as Soto.] He was an old man at the time of Astoria’s founding and several of the clerks there wrote about him. He was the son of a native woman and a white man, one of three survivors of a shipwreck. The date of this wreck would be close to that of the Spanish ship that wrecked at Canon Beach, and one has to note the similarity between the name Soto and several Spanish surnames.

How old are the Shoto Clay figures. Could a father making fired clay toys for his son have influenced the habits of the people of the village?

One has to also consider the possibility that a slave, traded from a distant area, could have brought the technology.

In 1812 the people of Astoria purchased Archibald Pelham from the people of Cathlapotle. Mr. Pelham had been captured by natives on the other side of the Rockies and had been traded from one tribe to another until finally being rescued by the Astorians. [The experience left him quite mad, and as this was a state the Chinooks had no word for they soon began referring to anyone who was insane or drunk as being Pah-Lum.]

Mr. Pelham’s case proves that slaves were traded over great distances. The people of the Shoto village could have quite easily purchased a slave who began his or her life among people who made and used pottery.

Finally, let me suggest a logical reason for the existence of “kilns” at Cathlapotle. Kilns are simply very efficient ovens, and the people of Cathlapotle had a genuine need for efficient ovens. They lived in an area rich in wapato, camas, and, of course, salmon. Without the use of preservatives the process by which these foods were prepared for storage was long, laborious, and fraught with hazards.

Imagine if you will, you have just gathered and mashed up several hundred pounds of camas roots. You’ve placed them in tightly woven baskets and pressed out as much of their liquid as you can by hand. Then you spread this mash out on mats beside the fire. After four to six hours of tending the fire you gather this all up and mash it a bit more, this time mixing in some salmon oil. Then you press the mash into cakes and lay these cakes on mats to dry in the sun. But what started out as a warm day has turned cool and clouds are beginning to gather. And then, as it does here, it rains.

Drying these food items in some type of an earthen oven would be just the thing to cut labor to a minimum.

If I have learned anything in reading the manuscripts and journals from the first half of the 19th century it is that the Chinook were quick to adopt any technology that cut down on labor. It wasn’t that the Chinook were lazy. On the contrary, they were some of the hardest working people on the planet when the salmon were in the river. But they worked equally hard at enjoying life. Any technology that allowed them more time for potlatches or travel to distant places to visit and celebrate with friends and family was immediately accepted.

In that respect I tend to think a lot like them.

Last changed: April 17, 2003