A Rare Fluted Waterbottle
The American Indians, who lived on the alluvial plains near to the Mississippi River during the period of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex or AD 1000-1700, were true masters at pottery making. Perhaps the abundance of fertile land for growing corn and other crops enabled them to have more free time for turning ordinary clay into wonderful ceramic vessels. These potters, who today are called Mississippian Indians, possibly made hundreds of thousands of pots for everyday use as well as ceremonial purposes. Modern collectors consider them all to be unique art forms.
This pottery was made in three basic forms that we call bowls, jars and waterbottles. The definition of the bowls is basically vessels that are wider than tall. The jar forms are generally taller than wide. And the waterbottles are simply bottles in shape. Of course in all three categories there are variables based on size and artistic complexity. Sizes of these ancient vessels range from miniature two inches in height and width to large food storage urns that can be upwards of two feet tall. Artistry, though, enabled the ceramist of make full use of their skill and aesthetically satisfying values. These artistic vessels range from realistic effigies of humans and animals to completely stylized versions of whatever the potter had in mind at the time inspiration hit. The exteriors of these artistic creations can be incised, engraved, appliquéd and molded in almost infinite forms. One of the rarer forms is called a fluted or gadrooned vessel.
Fluted or gadrooned pottery is usually in the waterbottle shape. The basic form of the vessels is a tall and simple bottle but the body is unusually thick and has multiple gadroons which are oval to round shape reeding, beadings or flutings cut or modeled into the ceramics. There would have been no reason for the potter to alter a given bottle with these flutes except for artistry since they serve no real function to the purpose of the vessel – that being to hold liquid. No one seems to know just how many fluted or gadrooned waterbottles were made by the natives during the ancient times but based on discovered examples, the total was probably no more than a few hundred.
The bottle pictured with this article was found in St. Francis County, Arkansas and was probably made during the AD 1400-1700 time period. It stands ten and three-quarters inches tall by exactly eight inches in diameter. There are four oval flutes or gadroons running vertically in the vessel body and vary from seven and one-half inches to slightly over eight inches in length by seven-eighths to one inch wide. The entire vessel is covered with a red ochre paint slip and the flutes are coated with a kaolin clay based white paint. This reasonably rare paint theme is known as Nodena Red and White. As mentioned above, gadroon waterbottles in general are uncommon but there are possibly fewer than fifty in existence with the red and white paint coating. But the uniqueness of the vessel is not as important as the symmetry and beauty. And the fact that one day some hundreds of years ago, an Indian potter decided to make something different and completed this Rare Fluted Waterbottle.
REFERENCES:
Galloway, Patricia, Editor
THE SOUTHEASTERN CEREMONIAL COMPLEX: ARTIFACTS AND ANALYSIS
1989
Hathcock, Roy
ANCIENT INDIAN POTTERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER VALLEY
1976
Hathcock, Roy
THE QUAPAW AND THEIR POTTERY
1983
Maus, James E.
“A Unique Mississippian Fluted Waterbottle"
PREHISTORIC AMERICAN, Vl. XXXIII, No. 2
1999
Phillips, Phillip, James Ford & James Griffin
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI ALLUVIAL VALLEY, 1940-1947
1951