 If you enjoy watching Common Ground online, please consider making a tax-deductible donation at lptv.org. Lakeland Public Television presents Common Ground, brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota. Welcome to Common Ground. I'm your host, Scott Knudson. In the season eight finale, join Grant Golds of Birchbark Canoe, as he shares his experimental archeology theory on black duck pottery with a group of First Nations women from Winnipeg. I've been studying pottery for probably since around 1980. There they come. Christie, my partner over there. Her main course of study when she was in the university was centered on ceramics too, so she has been studying them a long time. But there was a lot of misconceptions as to how this pottery was made. The problem was no one ever actually tried to do it. Right. Looked at the surface and, oh, it looks like it's got cord marks on it. And so that's must be what it is, you know? And when I started looking at it a little bit more, and then we would take impressions from the pot and then you look at those and then you see what actually made the impressions on the surface. I said, that doesn't look like a cord, you know? I said, wrap a cord around a pallon, pound on a pot and that makes this. And I said, well, but look, I said, there's these little strands that go from one row to the next here. Every once in a while you can see those, and that won't happen. And if they kept pounding it, it wouldn't be clear. It would be super imposed stuff going there, which way, and it's all nice and neat and clear. And I said, I think it's something else. And Lee Sims was onto that too. And so we started talking and then we started figuring it out. And he talked about this one kind of weaving that nowadays has been done in Scandinavia pretty much, but it probably was all over the world. And he said, oh yeah, there's examples from Peru and all over. And it's not a weaving like cloth, you know, it goes like this. It's a weaving where all the fibers go in the same way and they're just twisted together. And he said, I think that's what it is. And I said, that would make sense. So a lot of the archaeologists just laughed at me, you know? I said, ah, you don't know what you're doing. And I said, well, you have never looked, at least I'm looking. And I did some weaving. This is the first thing I wove. Now this is made from natural fibers. It's made from fibers of the wood nettle, which is a native plant. It's not the stinging nettle because that was brought over from Europe. That's not, it's an interduced species, but there's always been a wood nettle, which is a native species. And the outside of the stem has fibers in it. And you can peel that off, you soak the stems in water. And then you can process these fibers. And that's what I made this autumn. And so here's my first example of that weave. You see how it's twisted? It's twisted with two strands right there, twisted together. Then one strand gets connected to a strand from the next twisted, and then they become a strand. The other one from it goes over here. So they interlink back and forth. That's what holds it together. And these sections of twists can be any length. They could be one twist or 20, you know? And when you stretch that out, it looks like it rolls a string. Yeah. See, and that's where people are getting the string. But if you look, there's little things go across every now and then. So you hook them together and the string kind of offset now and then. And the problem with the string on the paddle is that when you're paddling, it's really hard to keep it in a straight line. Yeah, and also it gets plugged up with clay after a while. And pretty soon you're not making clean lines anymore. And you're gonna get criss-crossing as well if you're doing it. And sometimes you do, but you can get criss-crossing in the weave too. See, when you get this bag down at the bottom, when it's gotta go from this big around to nothing, then you gotta start doing some things like this. So you can get criss-crossing, but it's still in the weave. It's not in this. And as frequently when you see a whole pot, one of the things sometimes you'll see is an upper part will have straight rows and when you get past the widest part of the pot, then sometimes they start going together like this. And that's because of what you have to do to make that weave. But anyhow, this is what I did and I made a whole bunch of pots in this thing. See, and what happens, you can put this around a pot and stretch with the pot so as you make the pot bigger, this can stretch out. What this does, see, one of the things working with the natural clays, it's not like commercial ceramic clay. You can't handle it that way. It doesn't stay together as well because you can't have a real high clay content. You have to have something else mixed with it, crushed stone or sand or something, or else you can't fire the pots because they'll explode, because they're not porous enough to let this moisture out that's still in there. Well, when you get the clay mixed down to that point, it's hard to make a big pot stay together. And when you look at some of these broken ceramics, I've seen them where they're only this thick. Wow. And a pot just big around. No, you can't do that. It's just, you can't do it. No, you can't. You can't do it. It collapses on itself. It will, yeah. Because it can't hold itself up because the structure just, it's not strong enough. Right. And see what this does holds it together. That totally makes sense. As opposed to the paddling, because like we were talking before, the paddling makes it collapse inward into itself, and then you get rippling on the inside. Yeah. That's a good photo of that. That's just a little, some of my ramblings on this pottery before we really get into the hands-on doing stuff. Well, we're gonna be using natural clays. This particular clay just came from this little waste down the road. We're gonna be going over there. Here we are out here in the Scrabble Pit and there's a cut bank so we can see how the clay that we're gonna use for pottery, how it occurs. If you look right up on that bank, you'll see a gray, kind of grayish tan surface layer with a darker brown layer underneath that. And then it's just the yellowish brown underneath that to lighter stuff. What has happened is that light gray surface, everything used to look like what's below the lighter yellowish brown all the way to the top. But over time, the clay particles have been washed out of that surface, that gray layer, and they've accumulated in that brown layer. So the brown layer has been enriched with clay-sized particles to the point that it is just about ideal for what we need for making pottery. Okay, let's walk up there. We may find something before we get that far. If we do, we'll stop. I mean, if you're in the middle of a sand area, you won't get any. But if it's kind of more of the mixed glacial deposits, look around, you'll be able to find something like this. And it's easiest where there's exposure, like something like this. See, here's good stuff too, it was right here. Expose at the surface, and you see how it's cracking up when it dries? That's a clue that we're in that clay because it shrinks when it dries. That's right. And see how it sticks to the shovel? See, we dig into this. It's pretty hard. You see how brown that is? And see, right on here, what makes us dark brown is those clay particles are coating all the blocks of soil. All right. Okay, let's hand our way down. You want me to carry that? Nope, we're so good. I'm sure you can take this. Actually, if you wanna just put it on this road, I'll drive the truck up here and we're gonna load it right here. Okay. Okay, this clay came from the same place where we were this morning. This up has been sitting in his bucket for years and it's all dried out. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna pulverize this clay up and I'm just got a cement block thing here that I'm you working on now. We can just break it up in pieces. Now we can kinda grind it down. If there's any stones in it, we'll just smash the stones. Okay, I'm gonna quick try to get this done so we've got something to work with. I feel like we need a second one so we can do it, too, besides you. There's another brick over there. I can move over. Just need another rock. We'll ignore this part. Now we're good for grinding. You've got a big flat surface there. Yeah, I imagine my task is a little bit easier than yours. With it smooth each here. Good girl. Excellent job. Okay, we'll add some water and just start getting a little bit of it together here. So already wet clay is harder to hydrate. It is, because the water won't go into it. Yeah, but when you have something that's completely bone dry, the water is easily able to move around within the material. Actually, funny enough, it smells like my childhood. Yeah, just take and just smash it down onto some of that and it'll stick right on. Okay. There you go. And then you can just keep turning it. Well, I've learned how to wedge this way, too. Gets out the air bubbles, because you don't want to keep it. Air bubbles don't hurt anything in these. Really? No. Oh, because of the sot high sand content? Because of the porosity of the thing. I mean, air or moisture, anything can go right out. Really? And it's probably there. Time we make this into coils and roll it out and it'll all get equalized. Okay, I'll get a bunch of these out. They all work. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna coil up kind of a pot that's almost like one of those cone shaped pots in a way, but the bottom won't be quite that pointed, but we'll be making the upside down. So with the mouth of the pot on here and the bottom will be in up here. We'll do that. But see, I just start out like so. I don't spend a lot of time on this. Get started. And then I'll right away make another one. And that goes on top of here. Now, what I'm gonna do, you know, I just, with my thumb, I'm kind of smearin' it on. And at the same time, kind of flattening it. Because see, then it stretches and gets longer and they'll make it all the way around. And it looks kind of crude now, but now we'll start cleaning it up. You gotta have a little something to work with before you really do much to it. So, and kind of not let it get too wild full of cracks and stuff, but it'll have some. And then I take one of these shells and see it. And when you scrape this way, it smooths it. Later on, we'll be scraping this way if we want to thin the inside down because it'll shave off layers. But for now, we use it this way. See, we can just, and it'll, the clay will kind of stick on it at first. And because it's, because just like I said, that clay is like this and it comes apart as that clay starts flattening down, it'll smooth off and it won't stick on here anymore. So we'll just work this around and see, we're kind of making it a little smoother on the inside, and this is also evening out to thickness a little bit. But we want this right now, we want this thicker than the finished pot's gonna be because we'll be thinning it down later because it will stretch this pot out. Okay, now, I'm gonna take this, kind of, kind of smooth this outside a little bit. I don't want it too lumpy because before I put that bag on it, I want a fairly even surface because this makes it easier. See, if you wanna feel how thick I'm doing it, that's probably you wanna do that. You can get some idea of what, because that's what you're gonna have. Wow, that's gonna become really thin. Oh, it's gonna be like this when we get the pot done. That's insane. But that's what they were. You guys, everything I've learned so far. You weren't in that big pot that I got sitting up there, go lift that big, more of a, and you see how lightweight that is because it's thin. It's not quite that thin, but for its size, it's thin. I've seen broken pots that were the size of that, actually bigger and rounder on the bottom, that were only this thick. They weren't even three millimeters thick. Wow. The whole bottom. That's crazy. Like an eggshell. That's crazy. Cool, hey? Okay, now this should be enough clay to finish it. Sweet. Finish the bottom. You see, and I'm taking a little more time as I go to, to bond it up good, because I'm not gonna be able to reach inside for a while. Okay, I like to have this a little smoother, but I don't have my hand inside, so I can't push it out. I can't lift it up and do it, because then it will fall apart. But I'll get, it'll be close. I'll know that I gotta straighten that out when I put it in a bag. Now, I'm gonna set this up. It is, that's a gorgeous object, hey? Let's just moisten this up a little bit so it's more flexible. And then what I've done, we're gonna wring out some of the water out of this. Yeah, get it all over myself. I'm trying to make a fashion statement. Oh, yes. Okay. So now we got this woven fabric bag. There's kind of an inside and outside to this, but I'm not sure. Yeah, because see, because this shows this a little bit more. It pops out. And the other side doesn't. It's more straighter. That's the side that goes next to the pot. Okay, now we'll put this over that pot. Now, this is big enough. We could make a much bigger pot in this, but see what happens is I'll stretch it down and it'll get these ridges will come out of it as it stretches to make it into a longer, skinnier fabric bag. Okay, now what we're gonna do, I'm gonna pick this up. It's small if I can do it. I'm gonna set it right side up in here, okay? I'm gonna make sure we got this kind of squashed into it. I'm gonna go a little extra here. So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start out in the bottom because I wanna get that bottom fused together a little bit better. Let's see, I can turn this around. No, I can handle it and see. So now see inside, see how that bottom's getting rounded already? Yep. Okay, now I'll gradually work out from the middle and I'll work my way up the sides. So your hand's at the bottom supporting it, so. Yeah, my hand's outside of that. And I'll see how my hand's up against it when I'm working it. So you're still cradling it even though it's got that hoop and the hide. Yeah, as I work my way up, this bag will stick on it a little bit more. And you're always pushing it back onto the bag, right? Yeah, now when I get up here, higher than I can do it more directly. And you're using like aggressive or firm movements? I'm intensely trying to push it enough so it stretches the pot. So you need a little bit of firmness because I know some people are afraid that they're gonna break things and so they just kind of like dust it. That's why you got the bag on the outside because that should hold it together now. Sometimes it does get a few little cracks that you gotta put back together, but that's not a serious thing. See, you can see what the shape is starting to do. See how wide it's getting now? Yeah, like it was like this. Now it's like this, so beautiful. See, we're getting the surface texture in a little bit. I don't see that coming in. It's not really a lot. We'll get more of that in it as we get this thing a little stretched out. So at this point, there's a number of cracks, like there's one right here. Yeah, and that's what we'll look for those and just smear a little clay in there and work them out. And there's always gonna be some things like that. Because it's really wet right now. Yeah. But it isn't bad. Sometimes I have worse than that. Oh, really? Okay. Oh, yeah. See now we're gonna see that's the kind of texture we're gonna be working for. That's so cool. I think I'm gonna try to raise the shoulder up just a little bit, bring this up a little bit. We don't need that much rim on this size of a pot, but I'm gonna get it even all the way around first. Oh, that's a big crack now. Pardon? It's a big crack now. It's right through. Yep, there it is, isn't it? That'll be okay. It'll work. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to finish off this rim of this vessel and put the decorations on. Right now I'm just kinda evening up some of the high spots, leveling it down. It's not bad to start with, so it's not gonna take me too much to do this. Now, this type of pottery was most commonly decorated with what we call cord-wrapped objects, or cord-wrapped sticks. So we end up with this tool that has rows and rows of cords. And what's how this is used by pressing it into the damp clay to leave an impression. What they did is put some rows of horizontally applied lines. In other words, what I'm going to do, tilt this up a little bit, and then I'm gonna apply this tool, pushing it into the clay, and see how it's making that row of decoration. Then we'll move down a little bit and do it again. So we got two rows, and we'll just continue until we get all the way around the pot. We'll do this in stages. We'll make these horizontal lines, and then we're gonna make some slanted, not quite vertical marks above them. Now what we're going to do is we're gonna take this and use just a short end of this, and we're going to put some designs. We support it on the inside with our finger. There, now we've got that. Now usually there's a decoration on the top of the rim, and sometimes there's a decoration on the inside. What's common on the inside when there is something is another slanted row of these marks, although they're generally longer and they're not done very deep, and they're usually kind of more widely spaced, and so they just kind of look like that. Now on this particular style of pottery, a lot of times what you see is the very edge of the lip looks wider, and that happens when you do this. You don't push this straight down, you tilt it a little bit, and you don't go level, you have a little outward bevel to it. Yeah, and see what it's doing? It's widening this. Yeah. And it's kind of distorting the top edges of these things a little bit, and it's also kind of squashes some of the cracks full at the very lip. There, there's that part done. We're almost around on this, and then we'll make a little row of what we call punctates after this, and that'll be the entire sum total of the decoration. This will be put between those two rows of horizontal decorations, and we'll just push it straight in. Now what this does, it makes a little dense in the outside, and as we get this around, you'll be able to see what it does on the inside. It makes little bumps on the inside. Okay, I'm gonna get some stuff to start a fire. Here's the pot we're going to fire. It's been drying for about a week, so it should be, have most of the moisture gone, but before, just to make doubly sure, I'll set it here and let it warm up a little bit as we're getting the fire going. And see, we don't use bigger wood to fire the pot because we wanna get the fire to burn up real quick. And we don't need the fire to last a long time. Okay, we're gonna fire this pot. You wanna come on up and join into the process here. Come on, Laura. Okay, we've let this pot heat up now, so there shouldn't be any moisture in it, so we shouldn't have any problems with it disintegrating from steam, letting off. So I'm rearranging these bottom logs here, and we're gonna set the pot on those into fire, and there's a little space so air can get in. So now we're gonna start stacking wood around the pot. I'm gonna take a little, a few pieces of this and get them going to get some of the flame spread around, make sure this wood's gonna stop burning. Can some of you grab a little bit of birch bark? Yeah, there's a lot of humidity data that's kind of got this wood. Wood is not, taken off like it's supposed to. It's getting started a little bit now. I'm gonna get just a little scrap of birch bark and use it to kind of, ah, it's starting on that side now. Yeah, that's what we wanna get going. I'm gonna get a big round blaze here. Yeah, the fire is going good now. As soon as that fire burns down so the wood falls kind of away from the pot, it'll be all done, fired. We should start seeing some orange glowing in between, especially if we looked on in the bottom. It should be getting about that hot. It's kind of hard to see in there. Seeing if the pot was gonna break and pieces blow off, it would have done it by now. Right. So we didn't hear a popcorn popper song we know are good to go. It is kind of a dull go at the bottom down there, a little bit. Yeah, it's almost done. If the fire would fall away now, it would be fired well enough. Sometimes when I've got a big pot and the wood falls off the top fairly soon, when it gets about like this, I'll reach in with a stick and turn the pot the other way around so it's right side up so the bottom gets more in the heat. But for all practical purposes, it's done. We can kind of knock the fire down a little bit. Oh, it's tinging. That's on. It's good. That's what we want. It's good. And see now what we could do, we could have like three rocks in there and we could lift that pot on there and we could start cooking in it right now. Really? Yep. Yeah, there it is, a fired pot. Thanks so much for watching. 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