Post by blackcrowheart on Mar 20, 2007 13:14:16 GMT -5
Precious clay: Potter on the Pamunkey River Potter one of the few who
still know what Pamunkey River yields
BY LISA CRUTCHFIELD SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
The Pamunkey River holds treasure and tradition.
In the wetlands of the Pamunkey Indian reservation in King William
County, under the brownish water and a foot or two of slimy marl, run
veins of rich clay.
The Indians who live on the reservation still dig for this clay, which
for centuries has been the secret to their rich traditional pottery.
Mildred Gentle Rain Moore is one of the last traditional potters on the
reservation, and she knows where along the river to dig, what to look
for and, most important, what to do with the clay.
"This clay is precious," she says. "You can't buy it."
*
Moore, 72, doesn't dig for the clay anymore herself, but she instructs
others, who wade into the Pamunkey near the fish hatchery and the home
of her grandparents, in an area called Lay Landing.
Buckets of the gloppy gray material are hauled out.
But the work is just beginning. It takes a long time before the clay can
be formed into pottery.
"First you let it dry out," says Moore. "Then you put it in buckets of
water until it gets soft.
"Then it gets strained through a wire mesh, and then you let it sit
until the water rises on top of the clay, like cream."
The clay is then poured onto plaster of Paris bats to absorb more water.
Pulverized mussel shells and perhaps some powdered fragments of old
pottery are added for texture.
"It is a long process to get the clay to the consistency we can use,"
says Moore. "But this is the way it's been done for hundreds of years."
Pamunkey pottery is one of the most enduring traditions of a culture
that has existed for -- according to tribal literature --10,000 to
12,000 years.
Moore has been making pottery since she was a child. She learned the
craft from master potter Lou Bradby, the wife of her grandfather's
brother.
The reservation
* The Pamunkey reservation, 1,200 acres of land in King William
County, was created by 1646 and 1677 treaties with the King of England.
The Pamunkey Indians were considered the most powerful of all groups
within the Powhatan confederacy. Powhatan is said to be buried on the
reservation.
* The reservation is about an hour from Richmond, off state Route 30
near King William Courthouse between Central Garage and West Point. From
Route 30, turn south onto Powhatan Trail (Route 633), travel about eight
miles, then bear right onto Pocahontas Trail (Route 673) as Powhatan
Trail dead-ends. The entrance to the Pamunkey reservation is just past
the railroad tracks.
When the clay is ready, the arduous process of sculpting the pot begins.
"The clay is uncontrollable," says Moore. "Sometimes I set out to make
something, but the clay has other ideas and I end up with something
different."
The pots are formed using the coil method, where the clay is rolled into
long ropes and wound around a base to build up the pots. Some pots are
begun in a puki, a curved form that helps them hold shape. Wooden
paddles, corn cobs, deer antlers and shells are used to shape and
texture the pots.
To make the traditional Pamunkey blackware, the finished pottery is
covered with sawdust, pine needles, leaves and wood, then smoked in an
outdoor pit for about 12 hours. The resulting creations have a rich,
black finish.
A more modern -- and strikingly different -- style of Pamunkey pottery
came about as a result of a pottery school built on the reservation in
1932.
"The train used to stop here and women would sell their pottery to
visitors," said Moore. "That's how the ladies here made a living."
State officials, seeking ways to assist the tribe during the Great
Depression, helped to create the school, brought in teachers to
introduce new techniques such as using molds and promoted the
handicrafts.
Related
Moore finds one Pamunkey tradition she would like to change
The pottery school-style creations used the same mud but are terra cotta
colored, glazed and often feature pictographs (often of the legend of
Pocahontas and Captain John Smith). These pots were fired in electric
kilns (resulting in colors different from open fire-cooked pots).
Dr. Gabrielle Tayac, a historian at the National Museum of the American
Indian in Washington, called Moore and other potters cultural heroes.
"They are keeping cultures alive," she said. "It's not just the objects
-- the pottery. It's that the whole process is so deeply linked to the
community and the community's need to be self-sufficient and prideful.
"It's not just an arts and crafts operation. It's a method to keep
families together and have viability in the present."
The pottery school building, built in the 1930s, was recently spruced up
for classes. It's behind the reservation's one-room schoolhouse where
Moore studied until seventh grade.
Virginia's segregation laws prevented her from continuing her education
in the state after that. There were schools for whites and for blacks,
but none for American Indians. Moore -- like many other Indians -- went
away to study at the Bacone School near Muskogee, Okla.
She married, moved to Philadelphia and had five children. But several
years after her husband died in 1969, she came back to the reservation
where she had grown up to reconnect with the land and her heritage.
She worked as a nurse, raised her children and rediscovered pottery.
Moore taught her two daughters the craft but came to realize that as the
last of the original pottery school participants died -- the last,
Bernice Evening Breeze Langston, died in 2003 that many of the
traditional ways of life on the reservation also were in danger of being
lost.
So with the help of the Intertribal Women's Circle, founded by her
daughter Debora Littlewing Moore in 2004, she began teaching the skill.
Moore and the IWC are working to preserve native crafts -- pottery,
beadwork, basketry, weaving, dance, regalia and etiquette -- and their
monthly meetings are lively gathering spots for Indian women from
various tribes.
"We are empowering women," says Debora Moore.
Mildred and Debbie Moore have demonstrated traditional skills at
numerous locations, including the Museum of the American Indian at the
Smithsonian, where Pamunkey pottery is featured in an exhibit.
Mildred Moore was a member of the Virginia Tribal Delegation that
traveled to England last summer.
Perhaps most important, she thinks she has found a prot�g� in
Jacqui Collins, 13, a fellow resident on the reservation and a student
at King William High School.
"I was just going to take a class because I thought it would give me
something to do," said Collins. "I made a cooking pot."
Not just any pot, said Moore.
"It was perfect. It was small, but just perfect."
Collins said she likes the look of the traditional wares.
"It just doesn't look commercial.
"It's like you're looking back at time."
still know what Pamunkey River yields
BY LISA CRUTCHFIELD SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
The Pamunkey River holds treasure and tradition.
In the wetlands of the Pamunkey Indian reservation in King William
County, under the brownish water and a foot or two of slimy marl, run
veins of rich clay.
The Indians who live on the reservation still dig for this clay, which
for centuries has been the secret to their rich traditional pottery.
Mildred Gentle Rain Moore is one of the last traditional potters on the
reservation, and she knows where along the river to dig, what to look
for and, most important, what to do with the clay.
"This clay is precious," she says. "You can't buy it."
*
Moore, 72, doesn't dig for the clay anymore herself, but she instructs
others, who wade into the Pamunkey near the fish hatchery and the home
of her grandparents, in an area called Lay Landing.
Buckets of the gloppy gray material are hauled out.
But the work is just beginning. It takes a long time before the clay can
be formed into pottery.
"First you let it dry out," says Moore. "Then you put it in buckets of
water until it gets soft.
"Then it gets strained through a wire mesh, and then you let it sit
until the water rises on top of the clay, like cream."
The clay is then poured onto plaster of Paris bats to absorb more water.
Pulverized mussel shells and perhaps some powdered fragments of old
pottery are added for texture.
"It is a long process to get the clay to the consistency we can use,"
says Moore. "But this is the way it's been done for hundreds of years."
Pamunkey pottery is one of the most enduring traditions of a culture
that has existed for -- according to tribal literature --10,000 to
12,000 years.
Moore has been making pottery since she was a child. She learned the
craft from master potter Lou Bradby, the wife of her grandfather's
brother.
The reservation
* The Pamunkey reservation, 1,200 acres of land in King William
County, was created by 1646 and 1677 treaties with the King of England.
The Pamunkey Indians were considered the most powerful of all groups
within the Powhatan confederacy. Powhatan is said to be buried on the
reservation.
* The reservation is about an hour from Richmond, off state Route 30
near King William Courthouse between Central Garage and West Point. From
Route 30, turn south onto Powhatan Trail (Route 633), travel about eight
miles, then bear right onto Pocahontas Trail (Route 673) as Powhatan
Trail dead-ends. The entrance to the Pamunkey reservation is just past
the railroad tracks.
When the clay is ready, the arduous process of sculpting the pot begins.
"The clay is uncontrollable," says Moore. "Sometimes I set out to make
something, but the clay has other ideas and I end up with something
different."
The pots are formed using the coil method, where the clay is rolled into
long ropes and wound around a base to build up the pots. Some pots are
begun in a puki, a curved form that helps them hold shape. Wooden
paddles, corn cobs, deer antlers and shells are used to shape and
texture the pots.
To make the traditional Pamunkey blackware, the finished pottery is
covered with sawdust, pine needles, leaves and wood, then smoked in an
outdoor pit for about 12 hours. The resulting creations have a rich,
black finish.
A more modern -- and strikingly different -- style of Pamunkey pottery
came about as a result of a pottery school built on the reservation in
1932.
"The train used to stop here and women would sell their pottery to
visitors," said Moore. "That's how the ladies here made a living."
State officials, seeking ways to assist the tribe during the Great
Depression, helped to create the school, brought in teachers to
introduce new techniques such as using molds and promoted the
handicrafts.
Related
Moore finds one Pamunkey tradition she would like to change
The pottery school-style creations used the same mud but are terra cotta
colored, glazed and often feature pictographs (often of the legend of
Pocahontas and Captain John Smith). These pots were fired in electric
kilns (resulting in colors different from open fire-cooked pots).
Dr. Gabrielle Tayac, a historian at the National Museum of the American
Indian in Washington, called Moore and other potters cultural heroes.
"They are keeping cultures alive," she said. "It's not just the objects
-- the pottery. It's that the whole process is so deeply linked to the
community and the community's need to be self-sufficient and prideful.
"It's not just an arts and crafts operation. It's a method to keep
families together and have viability in the present."
The pottery school building, built in the 1930s, was recently spruced up
for classes. It's behind the reservation's one-room schoolhouse where
Moore studied until seventh grade.
Virginia's segregation laws prevented her from continuing her education
in the state after that. There were schools for whites and for blacks,
but none for American Indians. Moore -- like many other Indians -- went
away to study at the Bacone School near Muskogee, Okla.
She married, moved to Philadelphia and had five children. But several
years after her husband died in 1969, she came back to the reservation
where she had grown up to reconnect with the land and her heritage.
She worked as a nurse, raised her children and rediscovered pottery.
Moore taught her two daughters the craft but came to realize that as the
last of the original pottery school participants died -- the last,
Bernice Evening Breeze Langston, died in 2003 that many of the
traditional ways of life on the reservation also were in danger of being
lost.
So with the help of the Intertribal Women's Circle, founded by her
daughter Debora Littlewing Moore in 2004, she began teaching the skill.
Moore and the IWC are working to preserve native crafts -- pottery,
beadwork, basketry, weaving, dance, regalia and etiquette -- and their
monthly meetings are lively gathering spots for Indian women from
various tribes.
"We are empowering women," says Debora Moore.
Mildred and Debbie Moore have demonstrated traditional skills at
numerous locations, including the Museum of the American Indian at the
Smithsonian, where Pamunkey pottery is featured in an exhibit.
Mildred Moore was a member of the Virginia Tribal Delegation that
traveled to England last summer.
Perhaps most important, she thinks she has found a prot�g� in
Jacqui Collins, 13, a fellow resident on the reservation and a student
at King William High School.
"I was just going to take a class because I thought it would give me
something to do," said Collins. "I made a cooking pot."
Not just any pot, said Moore.
"It was perfect. It was small, but just perfect."
Collins said she likes the look of the traditional wares.
"It just doesn't look commercial.
"It's like you're looking back at time."