Wooden drum. The outside of the drum is carved and painted with coiled motifs and possibly representations of beings with heads and hair. These are painted white and raised above the red background. The lower portion of the drum is separated from the upper by a raised, thin, white band running around the midsection. The lower end of the drum ends in four roughly pointed projections while the upper end is carved to form a rounder shape with a smaller circular opening. This top opening is darker in colour and undecorated. Part of the midsection is painted light yellow, while the others are white.

Riggs Pueblo Pottery Fund

Riggs Pueblo Pottery Fund

Museum Expedition 1931, Museum Collection Fund

Gift of Charles A. Schieren

Gift of Charles A. Schieren

Museum Expedition 1931, Museum Collection Fund

NATIVE AMERICAN PUEBLO POTTERY
Pottery making was practiced in the southwestern United States for at least two thousand years. Zuni and Cochiti potters created the three vessels here: two water jars and one drum jar, which would have had a hide stretched over the top for beating with drumsticks. Historically, women were the potters, collecting their own clays, coiling and finishing each pot by hand, and firing the pieces in open fires.

Pots were often traded and exchanged between pueblos, so that new ideas were constantly being generated. During the 1880s the advent of the railroad brought an influx of trading posts and tourists into the Southwest and entrepreneurial potters began selling to the non-Native market. Today, both male and female potters continue to form traditional works as well as generate exciting new forms of Pueblo pottery.

Gift of Charles A. Schieren

Riggs Pueblo Pottery Fund