Island Potters

—And Their Wares

By F. J. Morgan

fpHE craft of the potter is one of the JL oldest known to man. Fragments of pots have been found in the most ancient sites of human habitation throughout Europe, Asia, and both North and South America.

Yet, notwithstanding the high develop ment of Polynesian society in the Pacific, pottery was neither known nor used by them. This is all the more remarkable since races of both sides of Polynesia were adept potters.

The Polynesians used only coconuts,

shells or carved wooden bowls for carry ing liquids or as food containers, but earthenware vessels of excellent workman ship were made in many places from Papua to Fiji. Tonga is the one exception! in Polynesia; but in this case it is con sidered that the craft was introduced from Fiji.

IN many of the islands certain villages specialise in making pots which are traded for food or weapons. In the Port Moresby district, pottery is still a thriving industry. The red unglazed pots find a ready market on the coast of the Gulf of Papua in exchange for canoes filled with sago.

In the New Hebrides, where the trade is confined to the west coast of Espiritu Santo, the local pots are similar in design to those made in Fiji and common to Melanesia.

Except in Fiji, glazed ware is not made without European influence. In parts of New Guinea, however, the salt water treatment of water vessels may possibly result at times in a light salt glaze.

Fijian potters evolved an interesting method of. producing a glazed article by applying Kauri gum to the hot surface after firing. These pots are used for storage of liquids. This art is apparently peculiar to Fiji.

Whilst, in general, island pottery is red or brown, variations are produced by the use of white pigment, and a wide range of ornamentation, by inscribed lines or decorated edges.

Although the potter’s wheel is unknown in Melanesia, native pots are symmetrical in appearance and very well finished. In some places the quality of clay and work manship is so good that very large vessels, which ring loudly when struck sharply, are produced with remarkably thin walls.

That pottery is not a recent introduc tion into the islands can be proved in many places. In New Guinea and in the New Hebrides, fragments of pots of very early origin have been found on sites of vanished villages. Some of the older pot tery which has been unearthed on sites of ancient villages w which were abandoned centuries ago is superior to the local modern article.

A representative collection of island pottery from the south-west Pacific can be seen at the Australian Museum in Sydney, and at other museums in Aus tralia and New Zealand.

POSSIBLY because the potters are women accustomed to baking tradi tional shapes of utility value only, no attempt appears to have been made to produce small pots such as might be carried in a service kit. Although some makers of native weapons, grass-skirts and necklaces seem to have enjoyed in the last year or so a whole century’s normal turnover, no sign of wholesale trade in pottery souvenirs has yet been reported, although some servicemen have made use of native pots for various purposes.

In a few more years outside influences may have introduced glazes and altera tions to shapes in the islands. There will never be a better opportunity than the present for native potters to open up trade with the many museums, large and small in USA and elsewhere, who are usually interested in adding to their col lections with examples of pure native craftsmanship, however primitive it may be.

Captain “Jimmy” Smith, now well on in his ninth decade, sends greetings from Vatukaula, Savu, Fiji. He lived on Abe mama for many years, and was there in 1942; “but,” he writes, “the Japs did not finish me off, as they did many of my friends in the Gilberts.”