Coalpot and Canawi: Traditional Creole Pottery in the

Contemporary Commonwealth Caribbean

Patricia J. Fay, Associate Professor of Art, Florida Gulf Coast University
[email protected]
Abstract
The functional clay vessels created in the labor communities of the Caribbean are a
powerful reminder of the core purpose of the ceramic enterprise: to facilitate the
health and sustenance of human society. Despite the long years of slavery and
indentured servitude, traditional potters in the Commonwealth Caribbean have
retained ceramic technologies from Africa, India, and Europe, and an examination of
their work yields fascinating insights into the evolution of Creole culture. Pottery
communities in St. Lucia, Antigua, Nevis, Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad
demonstrate the resilience of traditional culture, yet struggle today for survival within
an environment of mass market tourism and rapid modernization.
Key words: Caribbean pottery, women potters, Creole, Afro-Caribbean pottery
Introduction: beyond tourism
The marketing language of tourism artfully sells the lands bordering the Caribbean
Sea as a private paradise, travel destinations with little purpose other than serving
fantasies of sunlit indolence. Behind the faade of these picture postcards, however, is
a region with a fascinating history and a unique demographic mix. The inhabitants of
the Caribbean have included indigenous and migratory Amerindian peoples; European
conquerors, merchants, and settlers; African slaves from diverse tribes across the
continent; indentured plantation workers from India; and more recent arrivals from
China, Lebanon, Syria, and other countries around the globe. The merging and
blending of influences from these diverse sources has created the dynamic Creole
culture of the contemporary Caribbean. The work produced today by traditional
Caribbean potters opens a window into a rich historical narrative of resistance,
adaptation, and survival.

Fig 1. Coalpot and canawi, St. Lucia.

Fig 2. Large face planter, Irena

Alphonse, St. Lucia.

Rapid demographic shifts before and after the advent of European colonization have
created a unique confrontation and amalgamation of cultural forces in the region.
Amerindian groups inhabiting the Windward and Leeward Islands were progressively
decimated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by European conquest and
imported diseases, severely limiting their ongoing contributions to Caribbean material
culture. The introduction of slave and indentured labor from Africa and Asia that
followed generated an intensive acculturation process against the backdrop of the
European-owned sugar plantations. From the nineteenth century onwards the material
culture of the region has continued to evolve within the sphere of Amerindian,
European, African, and Asian influences. The many countries and territories of the
region are divided into the language groups attached to the colonial process, and
follow historical patterns established by Spanish, French, Dutch, and British
colonizers. Creole is a cultural and linguistic term used to refer to this syncretic
regional society, and within its definition of local birth the word carries with it the
same commitment to the landscape implied by indigenous while defining a time
frame covering the last 500 years. The Commonwealth Caribbean refers to the
English-speaking former British colonies, and is a more accurate classification than
the now defunct political designation of the West Indies. Traditional is my chosen
label to describe the straightforward yet highly skilled practices of Caribbean potters,
and avoids the cultural baggage embedded in the word primitive as applied to
pottery made in low-technology environments.

Fig 3. Rastafarian potter

Spanishtown, Jamaica.

Fig 4. Pottery firing in Choiseul, St. Lucia.

The functional clay vessels created in the labor communities of the Caribbean are a
powerful reminder of the core purpose of the ceramic enterprise: to facilitate the
health and sustenance of human society. Before the recent introduction of metal and
plastic kitchenware, clay pottery in the Caribbean served as the principal mechanism
for the domestic tasks of storage, cooking, and serving needs. Fine European china
and status dinnerware were imported for plantation kitchens and tables, but many of
the ceramic pots for cooking and storage were formed and fired using the abundant
earthenware clays of the region. Dinnerware made locally for personal use mimicked
the forms and even the names of the imported kitchen and table wares, and the use of
unglazed earthenware pottery in the home continued in many locations to within
living memory.

Fig 5. Local tableware, St. Lucia

Fig 6. Monkey jug, Barbados

For the past fourteen years I have been fortunate to meet traditional Creole potters
throughout the Caribbean region. As both a potter and an academic, my intention has
been to examine the ceramic technologies used as evidence of cultural continuity with
pottery traditions practiced in countries of origin. My particular focus has been given
to women potters in the Commonwealth states of St. Lucia, Antigua, Nevis, and
Jamaica who today use forming and firing techniques long practiced in West Africa.
The majority of the following article addresses the Afro-Caribbean pottery tradition
once endemic to the region. As counterpoint, I have included discussions of the male
potters of Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad, where the introduction of wheel and kiln
technologies from England and India have generated complementary colonial
traditions. Gender roles in ceramics follow remarkably consistent patterns women
potters are dominant in handbuilding and bonfire traditions, and generally pursue
ceramic production for supplementary household income in agricultural communities.
Invariably, however, the introduction of wheel and kiln methods, often accompanied
by the removal of pottery production from the domestic environment, initiates a shift
from female to male potters, and promotes the growth of a male-dominated class of
specialized artisans.

Fig 7. Jane Fauchier coil-building a

coalpot Choiseul, St. Lucia.

Fig 8. Wheel throwing at Radika's

Pottery, Chaguanas, Trinidad.

Afro-Caribbean ceramics
With the advent of European conquest, the rich and complex history of Amerindian
ceramics in the Caribbean came to an abrupt end. By the time of the escalation of the
African slave trade in the seventeenth century, Arawak, Taino, and Carib Indian
populations in the region had been effectively eliminated through warfare, disease,
and relocation, leaving limited opportunities for transfer or preservation of cultural
traditions. On some islands Jamaica, Barbados there was little or no contact
between Africans and Amerindians; in other cases, such as on St. Vincent, the
interaction of militant Caribs and escaped slaves created highly effective resistance
communities until the Caribs were forcibly relocated. The final result was the same
enslaved Africans became the new majority population of the Caribbean islands, and
their lives were generally considered to be outside the realm of serious academic or
historical attention. Domestic earthenwares, likely produced or traded on virtually
every island in the Caribbean during the colonial period, have furnished tangible
documentation for understanding the culture of displaced Africans in the Americas.
Recent archeological projects have established a clear platform from which to propose
a widespread regional ceramic tradition that evolved as a result of the dynamic
demographics of the Caribbean.
Scholars have employed the more general term Afro-Caribbean to refer to the
universe of Caribbean earthenwares which shares three fundamental properties.
Potters built these vessels by hand-modeling, coiling, or a combination of both
techniques, they fired them without a kiln, and they did not use glazes. From a
technological perspective, then, these wares appear to represent a continuity of West
and Central African techniques in a New World setting.1
By looking specifically at contemporary pottery production, closely related Africanbased traditions can be recognized in the technologies employed by women potters on
the islands of St. Lucia, Antigua, Jamaica, and Nevis. These women work entirely
with local materials, build utilitarian vessel forms by hand using a soft coil technique,
and fire the unglazed wares in open bonfires. In the summer of 2000 I was able to
visit the West African country of Cote dIvoire for a month-long exploration of
traditional craft practices, including demonstrations at several pottery villages. Direct
observations of the clay processing, handbuilding, and firing practices used by the
women potters clearly indicated strong similarities to specific techniques used by
potters in the Caribbean. And while the argument can be made that comparable
methods are employed in many ceramic settings worldwide, at times the hand and
body movements of the African potters (not to mention the familiar sound of sucking
the teeth for emphasis) were simply identical. In particular, watching the pounding of
the wet clay prior to use with a wide-based wooden pestle convinced me that heritage
practices can be retained within the physical memory of the human body, and have
been transmitted from mother to daughter across time and space.

Fig 10. Irena Alphonse pounding clay,

Choiseul, St. Lucia.
Fig 9. Koua Aja, Baule potter, Tanou
Sakassou, Cote d'Ivoire.
St. Lucia: at the heart of traditional Caribbean craft
The landscape of southern St. Lucia is breathtaking. The twin volcanic peaks of the
Pitons, recently designated a World Heritage site, rise abruptly and majestically from
the sea to the sky. The province of Choiseul sweeps southward behind the Pitons and
around the Caribbean coastline, its steep rural hillsides carefully cultivated with fields
of dasheen, plantain, potato and yam by descendants of African slaves and Carib
Indians. The geologic history of Choiseul provides easily accessible surface clays,
with the unusual combination of excellent plasticity and a coarse particle structure.
The result is a clay body ideally suited to rapid handbuilding methods and intense
bonfires, and to the production of pottery made for successful exposure to direct
flame. With such excellent resources close at hand, Choiseul is where the potters are,
as well as the furniture makers, boat builders, and basket weavers. This area is an
extraordinary example of the independent farming and fishing communities that
emerged with the end of slavery, and today St. Lucians consider Choiseul to be the
true heart of traditional island culture.

Fig 11. Daphne Stephen, straw baskets,

Choiseul, St. Lucia.

Fig 12. Blanc Alphonse, traditional

chairs, Choiseul, St. Lucia.

St. Lucia has a contentious colonial past marked first by battles with highly resistant
Carib Indians, and later by one hundred and fifty years of conflict between the French
and the English over possession of this strategically located island. St. Lucia was
definitively claimed claimed by the British in 1804 but as a result of this turbulent
history the sugar colony established earlier by the French achieved only marginal
levels of economic success. The completion of emancipation in 1838 left the small
population of thirteen thousand former African slaves and one thousand two hundred
white landowners little opportunity beyond subsistence agriculture. As a result of their
dual colonial histories, most St. Lucians today speak both English as taught in school,
and a French/West African Creole patois spoken socially. With the establishment of
the British capital of Castries in northern St. Lucia in 1814, the French-influenced
south was largely abandoned, and the post-emancipation communities that grew out
of the southern plantation system developed a high degree of self-sufficiency.
Demographic evidence and landholding records indicate some level of continuous
Carib Indian presence in St. Lucia, particularly in the area of Choiseul called La
Pointe Carabe. While it is clear that by the time of the intensive importation of the
African slaves in the late 1700s there were relatively few Carib Indians remaining in
St. Lucia, the resilience of the small Carib community may well have provided a
social role model that promoted the distinctive independence and self-reliance of the
people of Choiseul.

Fig 13. Julianna and Lucina Thomas,

Carib/African heritage, Choiseul.

Fig 14. Traditional St. Lucian kettle.

During a family vacation to St. Lucia in March 1993 I purchased an unglazed pottery
kettle from a market vendor in the northern capital city of Castries; the lady said it
came from Choiseul, and little else. My attempts to unravel the mystery of this small
clay pot have taken my life in several very unexpected directions, and completely
changed the course of my career in ceramics. Under the auspices of a Fulbright
Scholar Grant I moved to St. Lucia, and in the fall of 1994 I spent my Wednesdays
sitting beside Choiseul potter Catty Osman watching the near magical speed of her
handbuilding technique while I picked rocks and roots out of the sticky gray clay. On
Tuesdays and Thursdays I worked at the Choiseul Craft Development Center with
Cattys cousin Irena Alphonse, collaborating on issues of product design and pottery
training programs. These two women introduced me to a world I never knew existed,
and to a pottery tradition that has been largely ignored by cultural historians of the
region. After living in St. Lucia from 1994 1996, I have returned many times to see

my friends, pursue various kiln building projects and craft development opportunities,
and to continue ceramic research throughout the Caribbean.

Fig 15. Catty Osman.

Fig 16. Irena Alphonse.

The community of forty to fifty women potters living and working in Choiseul, St.
Lucia, constitutes the largest remaining regional group producing traditional Creole
pottery using Afro-Caribbean handbuilding and bonfiring methods. St. Lucian pottery
is made entirely by women in separate workshops within the household complex,
while men help with cutting and transporting wood for the large bonfires necessitated
by the numbers of vessels produced. Children assist in the more mundane chores of
the pottery profession picking rocks from the pounded clay, and burnishing the dry
pots. The arduous task of stacking the pots for the bonfire is often a cooperative effort
involving both family members and other potters living nearby. It is, however, the
potters sole responsibility herself to tend the firing, and wrapped in protective
clothing against the heat, she deftly manipulates burning wood and red-hot pots
throughout the two four hour firing. At midday in the tropics this is a particularly
taxing job, and is generally considered the most unpleasant task in the production
cycle. Daughters learn pottery making from their mothers in an organic manner
throughout their childhoods, and after finishing secondary school at fifteen they enter
into a more focused apprenticeship. Choiseul communities are family-based, and most
potters live in close proximity to sisters, aunts and cousins who are also potters. In the
current generation of rapidly modernizing St. Lucians, the physically dirty and
demanding profession of pottery making is not highly regarded. The market for
traditional pots is also declining in the tourist-focused economy, and it is questionable
whether, or in what form, the tradition will continue.

Fig 17. Public transport, Castries, St. Lucia.

Fig 18. Cruise ship docked in

Castries.

One of the reasons Afro-Caribbean pottery has persisted so long in St. Lucia is the
continuing relevance of its principal product, the coalpot, both for the domestic
market and for export throughout the region. A portable clay cookstove intended both
for grilling and roasting and for the longer cooking of ground provisions and stews,
coalpots are widely used throughout St. Lucia in combination with indoor gas or
electric stoves. The history of the Caribbean coalpot is obscure but the form itself
indicates that the clay versions produced today evolved as copies of colonial-era iron
coalpots, and they did not enter the archeological record until the nineteenth century.
There are many examples of clay braziers and cookstoves in northern and western
Africa, with those from Nigeria and Cameroon bearing remarkably similar shapes to
the coalpots of the Caribbean2. The historical relationship between clay and metal
versions of the cookstove is very hard to follow, and continues into the present as
inexpensive aluminum coalpots are now cast in Guyana and the Dominican Republic.
The canaw is the traditional round-bottomed cooking pot formerly used in
combination with the coalpot and now superseded by imported aluminum pans. But
many older St. Lucians say that callaloo, pumpkin soup, bouillon, and other one-pot
dishes always tasted better in these seasoned clay vessels. Long thought to be an
Amerindian word, canawi (or canari in its more conventional spelling) holds the
same meanings and implications in the West African country of Cameroon.
In these regions [of western Cameroon], even pottery used in the home is giving way
to more modern utensils bought in the markets. And yet, as an old Bamileke told me,
'Food always tasted better when we cooked it in canaris'.3
In St. Lucia, canaw is also the Creole word used to describe pottery as a whole, and
the catalog of traditional forms is extensive. In addition to the coalpot and canaw,
there is a range of sizes and shapes of cooking vessels for frying fish, roasting coffee,
or boiling plantains and yams; water storage and serving vessels such as goblets (a
handled pitcher), kawafs (carafes) and kettles; plates, bowls, cups, and other
dinnerware; and forms to serve many additional everyday needs including wash
basins, candle lanterns, chamber pots, and even large containers to fit into wooden
commodes. Both the forms themselves and the creole names attached to them attest to
their origins as local copies of imported ceramics. Very few of the traditional forms
are regularly made by St. Lucian potters today, who focus on coalpots, small vessels
for the tourist market, and a wide range of flower pots and garden ware, many of

which are embellished with incised decoration, fluted rims, or sculptural faces. It is
important to understand that the forms chosen for production by the potter are marketdriven, and are the province of the client. Ceramic production methods, however,
remain at the heart of cultural tradition, refined and passed along through the
generations, mother to daughter, hand to hand.

Fig 19. Coalpots in action.

Fig 20. Goblet and kawaf.

Pottery production in St. Lucia

In the steep open hills of Choiseul, workable clays can be found close to the surface in
most locations, and are typical of coarse, overly plastic volcanic clays. Due to the
large particle sizes and the presence of quartz inclusions in the clay, potters in St.
Lucia do not need to add additional tempering materials. Clays are generally dug on
family property; some potters find their clay from a single site, others will combine
sticky grey clay from one spot with sandy red clay from another. The raw clay is
slowly slaked down over the course of a week in covered pits next to the workshop.
To prepare the clay, a long handled pestle (or pilon in patois) is used to pound the
wet clay, breaking up any dry particles and homogenizing the mix prior to use. The
mass of clay is piled up on a hard stone or wood surface and pounded from the
outside to the center with a vigorous full-body motion; this process is repeated two
three times. The clay is then mounded up indoors next to the potters chair, and
covered in plastic and/or damp fabric to prevent drying. As the clay is used, it is first
manipulated in the hands to remove any rocks, roots, or other large particles that
would disrupt the handbuilding process and threaten the integrity of the vessel walls.

Fig 21. Volcanic surface clay in Choiseul.

Fig 22. Jane Fauchier preparing clay, St. Lucia.

Coiling and modeling are terms that have been used to label this type of
handbuilding, but from a ceramic production standpoint, they do not provide an
effective description of the continuous rapid motions employed. Coiling refers to
using individual building units made from a fairly stiff clay body that have a scale
relationship to the width of the vessel walls. Modeling is more accurately applied to
the solid forming of discrete elements. A more precise way to refer to the building
method employed in St. Lucia might be to call it the soft coil technique. Thick rough
coils of soft clay are loosely rolled out between the hands and swiftly blended
together the vessel wall is constructed, thinned and shaped simultaneously, with
further refinement and stretching of the wall performed with calabash or plastic ribs.
The form of the vessel is constructed very rapidly in a single session on a board
turned by hand in the lap of the seated potter. The speed of this process cannot be
adequately described Catty Osman can complete a full size coalpot in an
unbelievable 16 minutes. Generally, the coil is held in the right hand and pushed into
the vessel wall while it is supported by the left hand. After the coils are added, the
potter pulls her flattened right knuckle up the outside of the form to thoroughly join
the coils and thin the wall. A piece of wet cloth is placed on the finished rim of the
pot, and carefully drawn around the edge several times to define and compress this
critical structural area. When the vessel is complete the forms are transferred off the
board and onto to the workshop floor. After a suitable period of drying (usually 24
hours) each pot is again stretched and smoothed with calabash ribs, completing and
refining the form. Handles are added at this stage, holes are cut out on coal pots and
candle lanterns, and incised decorative marks are added to kettles and flower pots.
When fully dry, the outside surfaces of the pots are roughly burnished with smooth
river stones to compress the surface and make them nice, as the potters say.

Fig 23. Julianna Leopole, building a

coalpot.

Fig 24. Catty Osman finishing a rim.

After a long period (two to four weeks) of slow drying indoors, St. Lucian pots are set
out in the sun for several hours before firing. Firing days are determined by favorable
weather conditions the absence of rain, and the presence of a good breeze to keep
the fire burning hot. Pots are stacked in multi-level configurations with a stabilizing
layer of thin sticks below, and large cut sections of fully dry coconut wood are leaned
vertically against the pile of pots to completely cover the stack. Smaller firings may
use a range of combustibles, including wood, coconut husks, and cow dung. The
bonfire is lit using palm fronds and kerosene on the windward side, and is carefully
tended and manipulated throughout the course of the firing to ensure even and
complete combustion. The firing burns from windward to leeward, fueled by the

breeze and encouraged by the actions of the potter who flips the burning logs towards
the back of the stack as the firing progresses. A long wooden stick is used to
manipulate pots and wood, and the potter must bundle up in several layers of clothing
to protect herself from the blazing bonfire. The scale of production determines the
size of the firing; bonfires in St. Lucia can be quite large, with as many as two
hundred pots stacked in four or five layers. Due to the rugged composition of the
naturally tempered St. Lucian clay no preheat is necessary, and the pots are able to
withstand the sudden and intense heat of the two to four hour bonfire. When all the
wood has been consumed and the pots exhibit the desired color and surface, the firing
is left to cool several hours or overnight. St. Lucian pottery is usually made to order,
and finished pots are soon delivered to craft shops and market vendors. On rare
occasions commissioned pieces are made for a specific customer, but in general the
work is sold at wholesale prices to individual dealers.

Fig 25. Stacking a firing, Morne Sion,

Choiseul.

Fig 26. Bonfiring in progress.

Over the past several years, I have collaborated with Catty Osman and Irena Alphonse
to experiment with wood-fire kilns based on designs used by potters in Jamaica and
Trinidad (see below). The initial kiln-building workshop in 1995 was organized by the
author with the assistance of government agencies, private enterprise, and dedicated
volunteers. Dennis Bell, well-known potter and ceramic engineer from Fairfield
Pottery in Barbados, provided technical expertise, while material support was offered
by Clay Products, Inc, the sole local producer of earthenware building materials in St.
Lucia. The kiln design originally introduced has been modified and refined many
times, and is now used by several potters in the Martin and Morne Sion areas of
Choiseul. This small, straightforward wood kiln is ideally suited to individual potters.
Kiln firing provides harder, more durable wares with a brighter surface color, but
equally important, the process is less taxing for the potter and ensures a higher
success rate for the finished product.

Fig 27. Kiln building workshop, 1995,

Morne Sion, Choiseul St. Lucia.

Fig 28. Irena Alphonse firing her kiln at

home, Martin, Choiseul, St. Lucia.

Pottery production in Antigua and Nevis

When I visited Antigua in the summer of 1999, there were six potters still working in
the well-known community of Seaview Farm. As in St. Lucia, the Antiguan potters
are all women trained through mother/daughter apprenticeships, working at home in
separate outbuildings within the family compound. Clay is dug from selected local
sites, and is slaked down and used relatively stiff without any additional processing
other than picking out rocks and organic materials. Older potters remember pounding
their clay prior to coil-building, but this practice is rarely used today. The round
bottomed cooking pots, charcoal cookstoves, wash pans, flower pots and candle
lanterns they produce have comparable forms and are constructed using coiling
techniques similar to those in St. Lucia, but excess clay is scraped from partially dried
pots to complete the forms. When fully dry, the pots are fired in a single layer in an
open field, stacked first on sticks, then covered with dried grasses and burned until all
the fuel is consumed. There is little wood available on the open rolling hills of central
Antigua, and the grasses burn adequately hot to harden the pottery. With enough wind,
the pottery will fire to useful temperatures in one two hours.

Fig 29. Hyacinth Hillhouse, Seaview

Farm.

Fig 30. Pottery workshop in Antigua.

Unlike the individual home-based workshops of traditional potters in most areas of

the Caribbean, the small group of women who make up the Newcastle Pottery in
Nevis chose to form an economic cooperative. Private and government assistance
made it possible for them to construct a centralized workshop near the airport with

both studio and retail space, and earned income is dramatically higher through direct
sales to tourists. Interaction with the customer base has also encouraged
experimentation, and the range of functional and sculptural forms produced are
beautifully crafted and impressive in scope. Sharing resources has led to
improvements in clay processing, with truckloads of raw clay delivered to the pottery
for slaking in large cement bins. The clay is either used directly or mixed more
thoroughly in a temperamental electric pug mill purchased by the cooperative. The
construction method is a soft coil technique similar to that used in St. Lucia, but the
pots are rotated by turning them on a wet table surface, rather than on a board in the
lap. When adequately stiff, excess clay is shaved off the bottoms of the pots to
complete the form, as in Antigua. A finishing coat of a bright iron red slip is brushed
on the surface before burnishing, and the location of the source of the material used
has been carefully preserved across generations of potters. After a thirty-minute
preheating stage, the pots are fired in a single layer in an outdoor bonfire, using
readily available coconut wood and husks from a former copra plantation nearby.
After cooling and cleaning they are displayed on shelves in the retail area at the front
of the workshop, where they command prices many times higher than other AfroCaribbean wares. The added value of watching the potters at work has made
Newcastle Pottery a prime tourist destination on this small island.

Fig 31. Newcastle Pottery, Nevis.

Fig 32. Bonfire preheat, Newcastle

Pottery.

Jamaica: two separate African traditions?

Archeological evidence from late seventeenth century Jamaica clearly indicates the
presence of at least two types of locally-made earthenwares: African-influenced
cooking and storage vessels, and kiln-fired, specialized plantation forms such as sugar
molds and tobacco pipes. In Jamaica today, two distinctively different styles of
traditional pottery are also produced: the familiar Afro-Caribbean functional bonfired
work, and unique handbuilt and kiln-fired gardenware with a syncretic provenance.

Fig 33. Earthenware vessel, Jamaica c.

1700.

Fig 34. Sugar mold, Jamaica c. 1700.

The Spanishtown area of Kingston was at the center of the Afro-Caribbean pottery
tradition in Jamaica, but sadly only a few potters continue to make the characteristic
coal stoves, cooking pots, monkey jugs, and the wide bowls called yabbas . Like
canawi in St. Lucia, yabba is also a generic term for handbuilt pottery in Jamaica.
From the 1950s until her death in 1992, yabba ware in Jamaica was synonymous with
Spanishtown potter Lucy Jones, know to all as Ma Lou. Her dedication to the practice
made her a national cultural icon, and today her daughter Marlene (Munchie)
Rhoden continues her mothers work. The finer grained Jamaican clays are mixed
with river sand to improve thermal shock resistance, and an iron wash is used on the
surface of the finished pieces for a smooth, bright finish. The coil building process is
essentially the same, but includes the use of a round-bottom fired support base called
a keke which allows the potter to easily turn the vessel while under construction.
The bonfire is prepared by carefully stacking the dry pots in one or more layers, and
then completely surrounding the pile with wood and dried cow manure. A calm,
windless day is preferred, for the firing is lit simultaneously from all sides and left to
burn freely for one two hours. When the fire has burned down, the pots are carefully
removed to cool, and checked for cracks or imperfections.

Fig 35. Munchie Rodin starting a pot,

Spanishtown, Jamaica.

Fig 36. Coil-building in the keke.

A complementary ceramic tradition whose methods indicate both colonial European

and alternative African origins continues to sustain itself in urban settings in and
around Kingston, Jamaica. Dubbed the walkaround style, male potters working in
extended communities in the Trenchtown area build the walls of their pots by walking

around the pot as they are constructing it. The soft coils are rapidly added while
backing around the stationary vessel in one direction, then blended vertically as the
potter backs in the opposite direction. This ingenious method allows for the rapid
production of large numbers of pots made in the varied forms of English garden ware.
Some of the smaller, simpler forms are made by coiling into one-piece fired clay
molds, a method likely used centuries before on the plantations to make sugar molds.
After a brief drying period, the pots are fired with wood in a rudimentary circular kiln
made from salvaged bricks and scrap iron and roofed with galvanized sheet metal and
shards of broken brick. The firing lasts five to six hours, and includes an initial
steaming period that drives off the moisture in the recently made pots. Several
decades ago lead-glazing was also a part of this tradition, but the kilns are used today
to enhance the durability and clear orange color of the unglazed flower pots. The
many potters of the Trenchtown community have found a successful market niche
selling their work on the weekends along the streets of the wealthier neighborhoods of
Kingston.

Fig 37. Building in the 'walkaround

style', Trenchtown/Kingston, Jamaica.

Fig 38. Stacking the wood-fired kiln.

European influences in the Jamaican walkaround tradition can be seen both in the
archeological record and in the documented use of kilns, molds, and lead glaze. The
forming process, however, has a clear precedent in several West African handbuilding
systems, most notably those demonstrated by renowned Nigerian potter Ladi Kwali
(c1925-1984) who built her pots in a comparable fashion by walking around a central
stand while constructing the vessel. Jamaicas Master Potter Cecil Baugh (19082005) was trained in Kingston and Spanishtown by both male and female traditional
potters early in his career. He would go on to work with Bernard Leach in England
and to establish wheel throwing and stoneware glazing back home in Jamaica. Of his
early training he says:
But the method of free form pottery I want to record here is the walkaround technique
in which Bernard Leach was so interested. It is this technique which I demonstrated to
the Cornish potters in St. Ives, at Dartington Hall Cultural Centre and on the BBC
television ... Until her death in 1984 in Northern Nigeria Ladi Kwali used this
walkaround technique, although she built up her pots with coils and not handfuls of
clay, but it leads me to believe that the traditional potters in Jamaica were influenced
by their Nigerian ancestry.4

Parallels to this tradition can also be seen amongst the Hausa of Nigeria and the Mossi
of Burkina Faso, where male potters build their wares using molds and fire in a
remarkably similar circular kiln.5 With both African and European elements, and in
direct comparison to the more broadly distributed womens African-based
handbuilding tradition, the unique Jamaican walkaround style provides a fascinating
example of the complex issues of cultural attribution in the Caribbean.
Barbados: the pottery of Little England
Barbados, dubbed Little England early in its history for cultural fidelity to the home
country, experienced three hundred and fifty years of uninterrupted colonial
governance. With abundant supplies of high quality earthenware clays in Barbados,
pottery production was introduced very early in the islands history, and archeological
evidence indicates local ceramic manufacture by the 1650s. Afro-Caribbean bonfire
methods appear to have been used in Barbados, but were eclipsed by the wheel and
kiln traditions of colonial England. The combination of excellent natural resources
and advanced production technologies gave rise to a lively regional ceramics industry
in Barbados, and today the island hosts a large and successful contemporary pottery
community.

Fig 39. Contemporary cornarees and

monkey jugs, Chalky Mount, Barbados.

Fig 40. Plate from Earthworks

Pottery, St. Thomas, Barbados.

Both unglazed and lead glazed domestic pots were made by African slave potters and
their descendants in Barbados through the mid 1950s, with production focused in the
potters village of Chalky Mount. The wheel used to throw the pots was a
characteristic crank-shafted style well documented in archival photographs of
English country pottery. Potters children and apprentices would spend long hours
pushing the crank-shaft to drive the spinning wheel head as the potter made a variety
of forms including the monkey jug for cooling and serving water, and a tall jar for
pickling and stewing meats called a cornaree (a variation of the word canari). Both
glazed and unglazed pottery was finished in small wood-fired kilns derived from the
round bank kilns used for centuries in Great Britain. Kilns were needed to reach lead
glaze temperatures, and this partly underground design incorporated the insulating
factor of the hillside with an arched firebox and a replaceable roof made of shards.
The pots were glazed by first coating the form with molasses, and then dusting the pot
with a powder ground from scraps of melted lead. In both England and Barbados, this
type of lead glazing was abandoned after the Second World War. Contemporary

potters use sophisticated gas and oil-fired kilns, and work in both earthenware and
stoneware temperature ranges.

Fig 41. Early 20th c lead glazed pots.

Fig 42. Chalky Mount potter with

traditional kiln.

Trinidad: East Indian West Indians

The island of Trinidad sits far to the south in the Caribbean, only seven miles from the
coast of Venezuela. European settlement came late to the island, and under British
colonial rule Trinidad invested heavily in sugar cultivation. With the end of slavery in
1838 the new plantation owners began a frantic search for a replacement labor force
and turned to importing indentured workers from India. East Indian descendants now
comprise half the population of Trinidad. Two brothers with the family name of
Persad arrived on the island in 1898, and founded an entire dynasty of potters in the
central town of Chaguanas. In this case there is no question as to cultural antecedents,
and in the wheel and kiln technologies used in Trinidad there is direct continuity with
the ceramic traditions of India. The potters are men, but it is the women of the family
who are often in charge of the large production studios, coordinate the orders, and
deal with the retail trade. Women are also frequently involved in creating the
decorative carved and stamped surfaces on the pots, but in most cases it is men who
do the throwing. I have visited Radikas Pottery in Chaguanas several times over the
years, and I am always astonished at the extraordinary facility of the throwers,
whether making a tiny oil lamp or a hundred pound vase.

Fig 43. Throwing deyas at Radika's Pottery,

Chaguanas vase.

Fig 44. Stamped decoration on a

large wheelthrown vase.

The excellent, fine bodied clays of the central plains of Trinidad are mixed with the
feet as in India, although in the carnival culture of this lively island the practice is
referred to as dancing the clay. The bread and butter item in Hindu-dominated
Trinidad is the deya, a small coconut oil lamp that takes a good potter approximately
six seconds to throw for a total of five thousand on a good day. The deyas are used to
celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali in November to honor Lakshmi, the goddess of
prosperity. The potters will stockpile deyas throughout the year in order to meet the
enormous demand. Trinidadian potters use an ingenious homemade wheel constructed
from a small electric motor and an automobile transmission, shifting the gears to
produce a range of torque and speed settings. Kiln technology also came with the
Indian laborers, and has been adapted for Trinidadian fuels and production schedules.
The low walls of the circular kilns are piled high with pots, and roofed either with
sheet metal and shards, or with the more traditional covering of straw and mud. After
an initial slow preheat, large burning logs are pushed under the perforated brick arch
of the kiln floor to bring the unglazed pottery to temperature in about six hours. In
addition to the deyas, potters make flower pots in a dizzying assortment of sizes and
shapes, decorative jars, carved lanterns, and sculptural pieces. Many potters are now
also using electric kilns for additional applications of low temperature glaze on
decorative gift products.

Fig 45. Dancing the clay.

Fig 46. Firing the large wood kiln at

Radika's.

Unknown Craftsmen and Craftswomen

Little documentation exists regarding the introduction and evolution of pottery
making in the Caribbean region during the colonial period, and as a result, connecting
historical evidence to contemporary practice remains a subjective process. The
absence of decoration or ritual purpose in the functional, unglazed pottery made by
slaves, indentured workers, and their descendants has rendered both vessels and
potters largely invisible to the eyes of cultural historians. Yet the sheer presence of
these everyday tools for living, both in the archeological record and as made today by
male and female potters in the region, gives potent testimony to cultural continuity in
the living ceramic traditions of the Commonwealth Caribbean.
It is important to recognize traditional pottery communities in the Caribbean as
uniquely successful examples of domestic craft entrepreneurship that came into their
own in the post-emancipation period. For hundreds of years, Creole potters have made
substantial contributions to the economic and social viability of the region through the

manufacture of an essential commodity. Traditional bonfire pottery is a

quintessentially local product, and yet today many of its forms serve domestic needs
which no longer exist. Rapid economic growth fueled by the dramatic expansion of
the tourist industry over the past three decades has emphasized progress towards a
model of Western development, and professions that do not adequately serve the
needs of foreign visitors or fit perceived notions of modernity are being abandoned.
Foreign-funded pottery development efforts have been largely unsuccessful, but
locally-generated heritage preservation and celebration efforts that provide direct
support for existing practitioners offer hope for the continuing evolution of traditional
Caribbean ceramics.
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Notes
1. Barbara J. Heath, Yabbas, Monkeys, Jugs, and Jars: An Historical Context for
African-Caribbean Pottery on St. Eustatius in African Sites Archaeology in
the Caribbean, Haviser, Jay B., ed., Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton, NJ,
1999, p.197. back to text
2. I have collected examples of coalpots from a variety of sources throughout the
Caribbean, plus one from Cameroon that in form looks very similar to the St.
Lucian version. In addition, on p.58 of Nigel Barleys book Smashing Pots on
African ceramics (see references below) there is a black coalpot from Nigeria
that bears the same characteristic form. The production of fuel-efficient
cookstoves has been actively promoted in many developing countries, and the
question of the time sequence between metal and clay versions of this form is
a fascinating one. back to text
3. Jocelyne Etienne-Nugu , Crafts and the Arts of Living in the Cameroon,
Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1982, p. 99. back to text
4. Cecil Baugh and Laura Tanna, Baugh: Jamaicas Master Potter, Selectco
Publications Ltd, Kingston, Jamaica, 1986, p.55. back to text
5. Roy, Christopher D. Mossi Pottery Forming and Firing, in Man Does Not Go
Naked: Textilien und Handwerk aus Afrikanischen und anderen Landern,
Beate Engelbrecht and Bernhard Gardi, editors. Baesler Beitrage zur
Ethnologie- Ethnologisches Seminar der Universitat und Museum fur
Volkerkunde. Basel, 1989. back to text

References
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Curtin, Phillip. The Atlantic Slave Trade; a Census, University of Wisconsin Press,
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