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THE AMERICAN INDIAN

area of South America and in southwestern and eastern United States, except in the general area about the Great Lakes. In this northern section, we have the Mandan-Hidatsa type, fully described by G. L. Wilson,[1] in which the vessel is worked


Fig. 27. Lower Mississippi Pottery. Holmes, 1903. I


out from a single block of clay, then beaten into shape with a paddle, fired, rubbed with grease, and coated with a solution of boiled maize. Less complete, but still adequate, data from the Blackfoot, Menomini, and Pawnee indicate that in the upper Mississippi area we had a generalized type of this process in contrast to the coil method. Eastward in the northern Algonkin area our data are not so good, but it is generally believed that the coil process prevailed, except in the farthest north where the pottery was very crude.

This upper Mississippi, or Mandan-Hidatsa type has a striking resemblance to Alaska-Siberian pottery. The studies of Jochelson and Bogoras[2] show one general method for Alaska and eastern Siberia, a method closely paralleling the


Fig. 28. South Atlantic Pottery. Holmes, 1903. I


Mandan-Hidatsa type. The Blackfoot, Menomini, Cree, and some of the adjacent tribes fired their pots by putting them over the fire, as in use, after first soaking them with fat. This is also the usual method among the Chukchee and Alaskan Eskimo. The archæological specimens collected by Stefánsson

  1. Wilson, G. L., Am. Mus. Mss.
  2. Bogoras, 1904. I; Jochelson, 1908. I.