|
|
 |
The Mound People
|
|
All over the world. people are simply, tragically, and wonderfully people. Everywhere they developed a perspective from the landscape. People, who grow up in the jungle, have a very different viewpoint from those growing up in the desert.
The people of the Americas had a wide variety of world views.
|
 |
|
A Prayer for a Better Tomorrow ©2000
This mound complex overlooked Bayboro Harbor, in downtown St. Petersburg, where Bayfront Medical Center is now located. Some things never change.
|
The Vessel
Pottery made its appearance in Florida about 4,000 years ago. It was first found on the Georgia-Florida border, near the Atlantic and it is not what you'd expect. The potters worked with a very poor quality clay, and in truth, Florida's clays are often poor quality. Florida clays have a lot of what is called Montmorillonite, the smallest clay particle there is. Because of this, the clay retains a lot of water. As it dries, it shrinks, causing the clay to crack and fall apart.
This was the problem facing those early potters. In order to stabilize the clay's shrinkage, they mixed plant fibers into the clay. This made the pottery heavy and thick walled.As time went by, they began to experiment with other materials. Tiny pieces of limestone and, then sand were used. Sand worked for many hundreds of years, but sand produced thick pots too. Suddenly something changed and the pottery became thin-walled and beautifully designed. What changed?
I wondered whether they used cattail fuzz? I carried out an experiment a few years ago mixing cattail fuzz into a mixture of clay. I found it did everything needed to make the clay workable. Cattail fuzz is so fine that it is difficult to detect in broken fragments.
|
 |
The woman to the left uses a pottery paddle to make designs on the surface of the still-wet pot she has just made. A paddle can be nothing more than a corn-cob, a stick with twine wrapped around it, or a beautiffuly shaped flat paddle with intricate carvings on its flat side. The paddle is slapped against the wet pot leaving the design on the surface.
|
|
|
|
|
NTS-007 The Pottery Workshop ©2005
Above, women gather for a communal pottery making workshop and like women everywhere they tease and laugh with each other as they do their work.
|
NTS-020 Dolphin Mother © 1999
As Florida's environment stabilized to become the landscape we see today, the people began to explore other potentail. They built cities, harvested marine resources, and developed trade.
Reseachers, to the south, suggest that their primary resource was fish. Papaya, squash, and peppers were also found at the Pineland site in Charlotte Harbor.
In the central coastal zones, bones of deer are mixed in with fish and shellfish remains.
|
 |
|
The world around us feeds us. We are all part of a greater system. The lightning whelk represents the spirial of life. It was used as a sacred drinking vessel for our people.
|
|
|
|
|
