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THE METHOD OF MANUFACTURE OF SEVERAL ARTICLES BY THE

FORMER INDIANS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA*

Paul Schumacher

In my investigations among the remains of the aborigines of the

Pacific coast, south of San Francisco, I was always rewarded by finding
the olla one of the most beautiful utensils of genuine aboriginal

workmanship. The pot is usually of globular form with a narrow opening
on the top, sometimes pear-shaped, and others of the Mexican form with

a wide opening. Illustrations of the main types are found in Bancroft's
"Native Races of the Pacific States," Vol. IV, page 693, from my own
drawings; and in Rau's "Archaeological Collection of the National

Museum," page 36, from collections made by me two years ago. (Figures
1 and 2 represent two cotamon forms of these pots, drawn from specimens
in the Peabody Museum, collected by Mr. Schumacher.-F. W. Putnam.)

The stone of which this utensil for culinary purposes, and some

other articles of our Indians, were worked out, has been well known and
in use for like purposes since the classic times of Theophrastus and
Pliny. The Magnesian stone, and the kind quarried at Siphnus and

Comum-the lapis ollaris of a later period-of which, in ancient times,
vessels were hollowed out in the turning lathe, and carved, coincide in
nature and composition with the potstone of our Indians. The stone is
steatite, and is usually of a greenish gray color, sometimes showing
hexagonal prisms in stellated groups, with pearly lustre and greasy

touch, especially when reduced to powder. It changes in some portions
of the same ledge into a more flaky and micaceous character; while in
neighboring deposits on Santa Catalina Island, it exists crystallized
in stellated groups of well-developed hexagonal needles of glistening

apple color, which, are easily detached from the weathered surface.  ThW
living rock is not as bright or shining as are the fragments of pots

that have been exposed to heat; it loses its greasy character the more
a utensil has thus been in use, and the color is changed to'a bright

metallic lead color. Some years ago I showed a potsherd, the color of
which had thus been changed by fire, to a mineralogist, who pronounced
it Magnesian mica.

The first information I gained of the locality of quarries of pot-
stone, or where pots were made, was from a venerable Spanish lady while

* From the Eleventh Annual Report, of the Peabody Museum of Archae-
ology and Ethnology. Cambridge, 1878.

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exhuming in Ntpomo rancho, San Luis Obispo county, in the spring of

1874. She recollected a narrative of her mother, according to which

the Indians had brought ollas in canoe-loads from the islands in Santa
Barbara channel to the mainland, which they exchanged for such neces-
sities as the islanders were in want of. Two years later, in Santa
Barbara county, I received similar information from an old Mexican,

then my guide. While making researches among the islands, at the joint
expense of the Smithsonian Institution and the Peabody Museum, I gained
the assurance, during my short stay on Santa Catalina, that the stone
exists in certain places on that island, but did not then succeed in

finding the quarries.   But during my last expedition to that locality,

in behalf of the Peabody Museum, and of which an outline is given in my
prefixed letter, I made the discovery, found pits and quarries, the

tools used and unfinished articles.   I noticed that the softer stone
usually obtained in pits, which is of a more micaceous character, was

used for pots, while the close-grained rock of darker color, serpentine,
was mainly used for the weights of digging sticks, cups, pipes, orna-
ments, etc.

While in camp at Little Springs, my attention was first arrested

by a small mound of silvery hue, which same hue also extended over the

adjoining ground. The mound is in front of a large outcropping rock of

potstone, which I found to be an impressive witness of the tedious labors
of the aborigines, it being entirely covered with marks where pot-forms

had been worked out or left in various stages; some even were only begun
and abandoned, while others were nearly worked out in rough outlines but
still united with the living rock. At the foot of the bluff is a burrow
in which, and among the debris forming the mound, many potsherds, a

broken pot of which the outside had already been well worked, and even
the hollow started, and a pot-form as broken from the mother rock, were

brought to light, with many tools of hard slate in shape of chisels, and
scrapers of quartz.

From the Little Springs we followed the canon to the northward, and
crossed the pass, easy of access from this side, into Pots Valley. It
is a wide hollow canion in which potstone, silicious slate and "'float"-

quartz are found abundantly. The potstone is found especially-below the
small spring, which makes out near the base of a very conspicuous,

isolated, large rock, which stands nearly in the centre of the valley;

while the slate, of which the chisels are made, crops out boldly, higher
up, near the pass. Several hundred yards below the spring at the ravine
to the right, going down, is found a pit; and the ledge of potstone close
by forms a face in the ravine, which shows the same marks of the chisel
as at Little Springs. About eight distinct marks cover the lower face,

while others are obliterated by subsequent mining. One, having only been

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commenced, shows the outlines of a pot-form in a circle worked to a
depth of only an inch, and measures sixteen inches in diameter.

Between this place and the second ravine about fifty yards to the

northwestward, is another pit of larger dimension-about fifteen feet
in diameter and still five feet deep-where, too, among the debris,

potsherds and quantities of slate fragments and quartz are found, some
of which had evidently been used in working the mine, and making the
pots. Besides these places there are many more pits in the valley,
and a quarry especially prominent about four hundred yards to the

eastward from Pots Valley boat landing, close to the steep ocean shore.
In fact, on entering the cainon by the pass, as we did, when the grand

rock near the spring, the lesser cliffs and the scattered boulders can
be overseen, I was struck, on examining the locality through a field-
glass, by the discovery of so many silver hued mounds, the debris of
pits, the rock quarries and open air workshops, so that I believed I
had found the main factory of the ollas of the California aborigines.
Even those not interested in aboriginal remains cannot fail to notice

the manufacturing propensities of the people that formerly roamed here,
and the locality was appropriately named.

In examining the slate quarry I found the rock had been first

broken into accidental shape and size, and such pieces best adapted
for chisels were then selected and trimmed.

The scrapers, usually made of milky quartz, found in abundance all
over the island, are sometimes quite well chipped, but oftener simple
flakes.

I will mention here that we detected among the chisel-marks on
the living rock, as also on several potsherds, distinct signs of

metallic tools having been used. These were probably of iron and like
those which we frequently found in the burying-ground on the Isthmus.

Figure 3 illustrates a chisel of slate, half its natural size,
and figure 4 a scraper made of quartz, of natural size.

Figure 5 represents a part of the bluff near the boat landing, and
will give a better idea of how the rough work of detaching the rock was
carried on.

After the pot-form had been worked out, it was broken from the

living rock by working under it and by the gradual pressure of the chisel
around the base. The detached pot-boulder was next rounded into proper
form; it was then hollowed out until a certain thickness of the pot was
reached; and finally, carefully finished with the scraper. As the

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thickness of the olla increases towards the bottom-it usually thickens
from about half an inch at the rim to one and a half at the bottom-it

requires skill to attain this evenly. No mechanical apparatus was used
for this purpose (as shown by certain irregularities in the form of the
pot) but simply the touch of both hands in antiposition, one gliding
outside the already finished surface while the other worked inside

towards the guiding hand. In this wise, with some practical experience,
a greater accuracy is attainable than at first might be supposed, espe-
cially if the work proceeds from a known thickness to which reference
can be taken, which is here the case as it progressed from the rim.

A new pot is without polish, and has only the smooth surface imparted
by the scraper; while those which had been in use attained frequently a

polished surface by wear, which the soft and grpasy nature of the potstone
is inclined to adopt.

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Fig. 1.

Cooking Pot of Steatite, Dos Pueblos, Cal. P. M. No. 9202. X diameter.

Fig. 2.

C- .     t o St     S              - a

Cooking Pot of Steatite, Ssallta Cruz Island, (Ssll. P. M1. No. 9273. } diameter.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4.

Rui(le Scrapel 0l Quiartz, tiued in inak.
ing  steatite p)ots.   1'. AI. No. 13412.

Actuial size.

Rnde Clisel of Slate usedl in making
the steatite pots. P. M. No. 13411.

& diameter.

Fig. 5.

Ledge of Steatite, Santa Catalina Island, showing the method of detaching and shaping

the lpots.