Pit Fired Pottery

As part of a celebration of our Native American Heritage in August

of 2006, Starr Homeplace conducted a demonstration in the pit firing

of pottery. Due to time constraints, the pottery was wheel thrown and

bisque fired by ceramic artist Steve Arflin at his studio in Baton Rouge.

Native Americans would have coiled and smoothed long ropes of clay

into the desired form and then waited for them to air dry.

 

The pit was created by the guys who mow the yard. It was 4 by 6 feet

and three feet deep. In hard dry dirt, only their hard work made the

demonstration possible. The pots were decorated by visitors to the

community day and wrapped in newspaper. It is likely that native

Americans would have used dried leaves The bottom of the pit was

lined with sawdust. That was followed by a thick layer of crushed

 newspaper to completely cover the pots. In a bow to tradition, we

added some buffalo dung,; frequently used for fires on the great plains

The last holdouts on community day afternoon helped

to crush a thick layer of paper. The wrong time of year

for dry leaves.

After dinner on Saturday evening, we gathered

around the pit to light the fire and enjoy the evening.

The light small firewood creates a very hot fire.

The heat is held by the insulating quality of the

earth, and the slow burning buffalo chips and leaves

originally used would have sustained the tempera-
ture for an extended period.

 

We had to fight the urge to add extra logs that

might have created too much weight for the pottery.

 

The slow cooling of the earth over night provided

an annealing effect for the earthenware.

A cheerful bonfire becomes a thick bed of coals to

blanket and fire the ceramics

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