File:Smiling girl, Mandingo lady, and her large clay pot, Kabala, Sierra Leone (West Africa) (491581387).jpg

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Photo taken in 1967 or 1968

Very rough notes on pottery making collected by Edward Conteh and me in Kamabai, Sierra Leone from a Limba potter (the techniques might have been different for the pictured pot):

Pots made from white ant's hill clay (fá`a). Millet stalks mixed with clay; clay pounded together with the stalks. She then makes a coil out of the clay by turning it between her hands. Makes the mouth of the pot first in a coil and then builds the coils up and around, piling them on top of one another. Uses a calabash to shape the bottom and then sets the pot out in the sun to dry. The coils come up about four-fifths of the way to the bottom. Initial drying takes about 4 or 5 days during the dry season and 6 or seven days or more, depending on the weather, during the rainy season. Kukuthea [I haven't found what this is called in English yet] is pounded and put in a calabash and mixed with water. The pot is fired upside-down with a pile of dry material under and around it. Upside-down so that the pot's inside will get very hot. She uses a stick to pull the pot from the fire by putting it underneath and lifting it out. The pot is then put into the calabash full of water and kukuthea which will then boil if the pot is good. Kukuthea's action is somewhat like a cementing. The pot is left in the kukuthea mixture for just a few minutes and then taken out to become very dry and strong. If she knocks on it and it sounds like a calabash, then it is a good pot. If not, it sounds like dry mud. It's left on the fire until it gets very red (?1 1/2 hours?). They decorated the pots in the past; one person would use only one decoration, and they would be decorated for buyer appeal. One with fine decorations one would say was a fine pot. Not all people used to decorate the country pots. Decorations put on before putting them in the sun. This woman used her finger only to decorate, but says others used to decorate their pots with sticks. Very small pots were used to cook medicines [this appears to have been the case in other parts of Norther Sierra Leone also]. Other small pots were used for putting pepper in while eating (sort of a serving plate) and others were used for cooking sauces, etc. The very big ones were used for storing water. The biggest country pot she has ever seen was about 2 1/2 feet across and 2 feet high. Very small pots still used for medicine in the 1960s.
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Smiling girl, Mandingo lady, and her large clay pot, Kabala, Sierra Leone (West Africa)

Author John Atherton

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current06:40, 21 November 2013Thumbnail for version as of 06:40, 21 November 20131,560 × 980 (483 KB)File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) (talk | contribs)Transferred from Flickr by User:AlbertHerring

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