4. THE FIRST POTTER HANFORD MONTROSE BURR Less interesting and dramatic, perhaps, than the invention of weapons but more useful for man's welfare were such inventions for domestic use as dishes, vases, and crockery, seen nowadays in every home. There was a time, of course, when these utensils were entirely unknown. In this story we have an imaginative account of the way in which they came into existence. The greatest discovery of Oma, the wife of Ang, the caveman, was the art of making pottery dishes out of clay and baking them before the fire. For a long time women had made baskets of reeds and willow twigs in which they could carry dry foods, but the problem was to get something in which they could carry liquids. Sometimes they used skin bottles, but the bottles soon leaked and the water rotted them out. Then some clever woman smeared the inside of a closely woven basket with pitch. Another lined her baskets with clay and baked them in the sun, but water would soon soften the clay. Then came Oma and the fire and the art of baking clay. Oma had been lining some baskets with clay, and little Om, her son, tried to imitate her. Since it was cold, he sat as near to the fire as he could. After he had finished a little basket, he would put it on a stone near the fire until he had a row of baskets. When the wind changed suddenly and blew the fire towards him he had to move quickly, leaving his clay baskets on the rock. He called to his mother to get them, but she had no notion of getting burned for so small a cause. That night after Om had gone to sleep his mother sat by the fire with Ang, her husband. Her eyes spied the little row of clay baskets. She picked one up to show the father what a clever boy his son was getting to be. As she touched the clay, she found it dry and hard as no clay she had ever touched before. Some of the baskets were dry and crumbly, but two or three in the center were as hard as stone. She ran to the brook and filled the hardest baskets with water and brought them back to the fire. They did not soften or leak. Then she put them on a flat stone and pushed them almost into the fire. Soon the water in them began to bubble and steam. "Look!" cried Oma. "At the touch of the Red One a little Cloud Spirit goes up to the great Cloud Spirits that fly in the blue above us." Then Ang knew that Odin had given a new gift. "This time the Red One has spoken to you; what has he said?" Oma carefully drew the little clay pots from the fire, and after they had cooled examined them. Two of them were cracked, but one was as firm and solid as if it had been cut from stone. She held it up before Ang in triumph. "This is what we have been waiting for since the beginning of time. The Red One has worked magic on the clay, and its old enemy, the water, cannot eat through it." The next day Oma made baskets lined with clay; then, putting them on flat stones, she pushed them into the heat of the fire. Some of them crumbled, but others baked hard and firm. As the heat burned off the inclosing basket, the pattern was left molded on the clay. After many experiments Oma learned just what clay to use and how to bake it. She made pots of all sizes and arranged them on ledges of her cave and filled them with nuts and seeds. Then she learned how to use the clay pots for cooking. In the old days she had placed scraps of meat and bone and roots in a pitch-lined basket and then added water and hot stones from the fire. Of course the pitch softened, giving an unpleasant taste to the stew, and often the hot water softened the basket so much that it became like a sieve. But now Oma could mix her stews and brews and boil them until they were soft and delicious, and the clay dishes were just as good as before. When Suta and other women came to look, they wondered and tasted, smacked their lips, asked how the dishes were made, and then went home to make some likewise. The fame of Ang and Oma grew in the north land, and men said, "They are loved by the Great One." But if Oma made the first and the most useful pottery, Suta, the wife of Wang, made the most beautiful. After she had learned to bake the clay so that neither fire nor water would harm it, she amused herself by making dishes of queer shapes. Then she discovered it was not necessary to make the basket moulds, and that marks made on the clay when it was soft would be baked in. She began by making a little row of nail prints about the rim — (((((((((. Then with a sharpened stick she made rough pictures of animals and men. And the fame of Suta went out also through the north land, and people came from far away to see the wonderful things which she had done. Others tried, but no one could make such beautiful dishes as Suta. Before the great fire feast an idea came to Suta like a dream in the night, she knew not from whence. She would make a great bowl for Odin and she would mould on it pictures of his gifts, so that all who saw would remember from whom the good things. came. With great care she shaped a bowl as high as a five-yearold child, and so large that a grown man could not circle it with his arms. On it she pictured the man who shot the first deer with a stone-tipped arrow, the man who made the first snare for the wild birds, the man who first crossed the deep water in a hollowed log, Ang striking fire from the flints, Oma baking the clay dishes. Then she hesitated. These and many things more the Great One had given; what would He give next? What did she want most? Now Suta was not like Ang or Wang or even like Oma. Wang had thought sometimes that she was not so good a cook as Oma, that she spent too much time listening to the song of the birds and watching the play of the light on the water and the woods and the far-off hills. She did these things sometimes when he thought she ought to get wood for the fire or cook something for him to eat; at such times he grumbled a little. But now that she made dishes of clay which no one else could make and all men said: "What a fortunate man Wang is to have such a wife!" he began to be very proud of her. He even went so far as to get wood for the fire, a task which he did not think man's work. But what did Suta, the dreamer, want? She did not want more food, or more clothes, or a bigger cave; she wanted the power to mould in clay the things she saw and loved. So she put on the great bowl for the All-Father a picture of a woman, with her back turned on the lookers and a sharpened stick in her hand, just ready to work the soft clay, but waiting for the power to draw on clay the picture in her mind. This was the first expression of the yearning of the artist for beauty and the power to express it. For Suta was the mother of those who love the beautiful and long to give it permanent form. CLASS ACTIVITIES 1. Tell the story of the first potter. 2. Was the discovery of the art of making pottery, according to the story, the result of an accident? Explain. In this respect does it resemble "The First Bow and Arrow"? 3. Tell who or what is meant by the following: Odin, Red One, Cloud Spirit, Great One. 4. Describe the six pictures which Suta moulded on the great bowl for Odin. Name the preceding selections in this book which describe or refer to the events she pictures. Which of these events have not previously been mentioned? 5. Explain: Suta longed to give beauty permanent form. Did she succeed? Name ways in which you try to give beauty to your work. Give four examples, each in a different line of work or endeavor, showing how artists, writers, and builders have given beauty permanent form. 6. Explain whether Suta and Big Ivan (see "The Citizen," Book One, · p. 466) were dreamers of the same sort. Read the passages in each story which support your opinion. 7. Question for informal debate (speeches to be limited to two minutes each): Did Suta or Oma make the greater contribution to man's happiness? CLASS-LIBRARY READINGS INVENTIONS OF EARLY MEN I. "The Story in a Rifle," Wonder Book of Knowledge, 75–96. 2. "The Forge," Stories of Useful Inventions, 38-53. 3. "The Needle," ibid., 125-136. 4. "The Gun," ibid., 137-146. 5. "Inventions That Have Changed the World," Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, 4: 1795-1802. 6. "The Potter and His Clay," ibid., 7: 2903-2907. 7. “When All Man's Tools Were Made of Stone," ibid., 8: 3360–3361. 8. "The China on the Table," Book of Knowledge, 14: 4447-4485. Read the The main idea in this poem is repeated in each stanza. poem twice and be prepared to point out the lines in each stanza which best express this idea. Back of the beating hammer By which the steel is wrought, Of iron and steam and steel, And tramples it under heel! The drudge may fret and tinker, The clear-eyed man who knows; For into each plow or saber, Each piece and part and whole Must go the brains of labor Which gives the work a soul! Back of the motor's humming, |