Open Firing Techniques as Community-based Technology: The
Case of the Ari Pottery Making in Southwestern Ethiopia

MORIE KANEKO
Kyoto University

The objective is to redefine the overall practice of pottery making by Ari potters as one of
their community-based technologies. In comparison with the firing method of Japanese kiln
firing, Ari's open firing was at first expected to cause an explosion or cracking of pots due to its
abrupt rise of temperature. However, experiments on the ratio of contraction and water absorption of clay showed that they prevent the pots from exploding, even when the temperature ofopen-firing drastically goes up, by mixing plenty of ground-up broken pots with clay. They haveachieved an effective way of making durable pots with minimum time and resources. In theanalysis of Ari vocabularies for evaluating the traits of pots all through the process, specific folk
categories, which were malki and aani, in evaluating the durability and quality were common
to both makers and users. In addition, Ari potters explain the situation when pots are broken
during open firing by using aani expression. Ari pottery making as a community-based technology was redefined that was influenced by the evaluation and social behavior are based on thevarious relationships, which are human-material relationships for making and classifYing pots
and human-human relationships for exchanging pots.

Key words: Open firing, community-based technology, pots, Ari, southwestern Ethiopia

1. INTRODUCTION
Craft workers of the Ari people in southwestern Ethiopia manufacture and sell their pots to local
residents for use in their daily lives. These pots are made by female potters who belong to a special
craft worker's group, called tila mana in the Ari language. They dig up clay in specific locations bythemselves and form the pots using their hands, without the use of a potter's wheel. They divide thewhole process of pot making into four stages, and they dry the pots several times at each stage in theprocess of pottery making. Mter the pots are completely dried, the potters practice open firing without using kilns by using twigs and dried grass for fuel, which they collect in farmers' fields. They also
use fresh grass as additional fuel. The pots are usually fired for around 2 hours, and they are finishedwith a starch glue made from casaba and ensete, which belongs to the Musaceae family. The pots areready to be sold at local markets after this stage.
At first glance, Mrican earthenware appears to have similarities to ]omon and Yayoi pots, which arean ancient Japanese type of pottery. Dating from more than 3000 years ago, these Japanese styles bearsimilarities to Mrican pottery in terms of firing temperature, the shape of the pottery, and the decorations on the pots (Mori 1992). Earthenware is classified into four categories according to firing temperature: clay pots, earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain {Magumo 1998b). Clay pots are fired at

Nilo-Ethiopian Studies 17: 1-26 (2012)

Copyright© 2012.Japan Association for Nilo-Ethiopian Studies

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800oC, earthenware is fired at 1,200oC, and stoneware and porcelain are fired at 1,300oC (Mori 1992).
According to the technological history of pottery making, the firing of earthenware has developed
from open firing, which was practiced on flat ground, to pit firing, carried out in depressions in the
ground, to the simplified updraft kiln, which has low walls and is built in a big pit, to the oven style,which is constructed on mountainous slopes, and finally to the kiln. One of the prominent featuresof this technological development has been the pursuit of the best technological system by which to
make strong vessels by both achieving high firing temperatures and attaining production on a large
scale (Yoshida 1973, Nagumo & Lodos 1979). The method of pottery firing found in much of Mrica
is regarded as the most basic technological system in terms of the technological history of pottery. <t>However, nobody knows whether Mrican pottery making will follow the same trail of technological development in the future as has occurred in other areas of the world. Mori, a ceramic artist who
also taught pottery-making techniques at a university in Japan, tried to introduce the Japanese-stylekiln in a small Ugandan village (Mori 1992). It was a tough challenge, and he was forced to face
the fact that nobody used the Japanese style kiln after its introduction. He concluded that the social
background in specific areas must be considered when introducing new technologies (Mori 1992).
Kawada (1979) also tried to make a kiln in the small Mosi village in West Mrica in the 1970s,
and he faced difficulties several times when he attempted to teach local craft workers the concept oftechnological innovation related to the basic technological elements (Kawada 1979). According to
his speculation, ways of pottery making, such as forming and firing pots, must be embedded in theirsociocultural environment.
Gosselain (1992a), who studied variations in the relationship between the temperature dynamics ofbon firing and local ways of open firing in Cameroon, Mrica, wondered why potters have preferred topractice certain methods of firing. Although the clay in his research site had a high degree of refractoriness, from 800 to 1,000°C, potters still preferred to use a firing method with a relatively low heat.
He suggested that it was not enough to understand local ways of open firing in terms of scientificrationality and that local methods were actually quite efficient in terms of time and natural resource
management (Gosselain 1992a).<2>
These examples show that analyzing only technical elements, such as types of fuel, firing structures, and the dynamics of temperatures, cannot provide us with a complete understanding of pottery
technologies. Indeed, by focusing only on these issues, we are unable to understand the reasons thatpeople in Mrica have continued to use this technological system that is so basic from the perspectiveof technological history.
Ari pottery making in southwestern Ethiopia is called a community-based technology<3>(CBT)(Shigeta 1996), which is not a modern technology but is rather a traditional technology based on
local practices embedded in the people's sociocultural environment.<4> In this case, CBT is based onstrong locally embedded traditions that rely on local materials available in this area and adjust to local
demand, producing pots for use in this area.
This paper focuses on the firing techniques of the Ari pottery-making practices. 
 In this paper, I
try to characterize the pottery-making techniques as the result of mutual relationships between potters and users by analyzing the features of the clay, the dynamics of temperatures for open firings, andthe potters' practices, which entail the entire process of pottery making from digging clay to selling
their pots at local markets. This paper consists of five chapters. Chapter 2 places this research in thecontext of previous research and explains the objectives of the paper. Chapter 3 shows the characteristics of Ari open firings in terms of clay digging, forming the pots, and procedures for open firing.
Chapter 4 discusses when and how potters work on firing and also analyzes the verbal expressions,such as aani and malki, used to evaluate the pots. In the final chapter, I summarize the features of
Ari open-firing techniques, which are embedded in their sociocultural practices, and redefine theterm CBT, which is based on the object-human relationships between people and pots as well as thehuman-human relationships between potters and users, mediated by the pots.

KANEKO: Open Firing Techniques as Community-based Technology

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2.PREVIOUSSTUDIESANDRESEARCHAREA
2.1. Previous research on potteryfiring
The technological history of pottery making has been related to the history of human evolution.
Human beings are believed to have started using pots in their daily lives in the Neolithic period(Yumiba 2001). Earthenware, which is fragile, is regarded to be more suited to settled ways oflife, such as agrarian and urban societies, than to nomadic and foraging lifestyles (Yoshida 1973).
Earthenware has been targeted as an important archaeological object that researchers examine, generate hypotheses about, and use to form conclusions about human evolution.
The Japanese technological history of pot firing has emphasized technological innovation fromopen firing to pit firing. This innovation enabled people to produce sueki, which is earthenware thatis stronger than previous pots because of the high temperatures of pit firing (Mori & Kazama 1976,
Morita 2001). Almost the same exact technological innovation of pit firing occurred in many areas in
China, Korea, and European countries (Mori &Kazama 1976). The technology of pit firing has beentreated as critical evidence to examine human and social history in an evolutionary sense.
However, many potters throughout Mrican, Asian, and South American countries continue to use
open firing techniques, and potters in these areas produce and sell various kinds of pots for daily use(Tobert 1984a, b, Woods 1984, Karamer 1985, Mori 1987a, b, c 1992, Gosselain 1992a, Shinohara
1996, Vincentelli 2000, Smith 2000). Mori (1987a, b, c 1992) classified and analyzed Mrican bon
firing. Gosselain (1992a) measured the dynamics of thermometric data on bon firing in Cameroon.
He called this ethno-thermometric data, and produced data with different characteristics from experimental archaeological data. These data showed that the manner of adding fuel in bon firing had agreat influence on the dynamics of temperatures; bon firing cannot produce stable temperatures, andthe clay in Mrica has a high pyrometric cone equivalent value.
As mentioned above, Gosselain (1992a) proposed the question of why local potters continue topractice the same open-firing procedure rather than shifting to kiln firing even though there is a highrisk that the pots will explode during firing, and the clay in Cameroon has a high pyrometric cone
equivalent value. However, this question views pottery making in Mrica from a technocentric pointof view. In contrast, Lemonnier (1993) argued that the tendency to use particular technologies resultsfrom craft workers' choices, which are influenced by cultural practices and social relationships as wellas technological conditions. He proposed that the techniques of craft works be viewed as social products, noting that craft workers make technological choices at every stage of production, from selecting
where clay is procured to determining how it is formed and fired. He broadened his approach to thestudy of technology to examine how people work with the natural environment, what the technological mechanisms of peoples' choices in their societies are, and how technologies are characterized intheir cultural systems (Lemonnier 1993).
As stated above, the study of bon firing has been understood in the context of the historical processof pot firing as a sociotechnological development in archaeological and historical terms. This point ofview characterizes pottery making as a method of adaptation to the natural environment. However,recent studies on open firing have uncovered new information that we cannot understand from thefunctionalistic perspective of technology. Rather, from the viewpoint of technologies as social productions, people who are influenced by a set of cultural practices and social relationships make technological choices in their production process. Yet, both viewpoints, i.e., the concept of adaptation to
the environment and the idea of pottery as a result of technological choices, have the same attitude
toward technology. From both perspectives, technology reveals the characteristics of a society, andthe members of each society share common technological features by which they produce pottery.
2.2. Objectives and methods
Taking this point carefully into account, this paper not only analyzes technological elements, which
excises people's socio-cultural lives from the analysis, but also examines the relationships between
potters and materials of pottery making and the relationships between potters and users as social

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behaviors that result in change and innovation in the techniques used. The paper conceptualizes thewhole process of pottery making, including getting raw materials and forming, firing, and selling pots
to users at the local markets, as "the process of pottery making." Pots are produced as the result of
mutual relationships between pot makers and other agents such as raw materials, natural environments, potters' relatives, and pot users. In this paper, I term this point of view "community-based
technology." The three aims of the paper are (1) to elucidate the procedure of firing pots, the raw
materials of firing fuels, and the dynamics of firing temperatures; (2) to clarify the ways in which potters participate in and conduct firing; and (3) to describe the ways in which potters and users evaluate
pots.
This paper also includes an analysis of potters' behavior when firing pots as well as the physicalconditions of firing pots. For example, I recorded their actions when they participated in the pot
firing and also wrote down the dynamics of temperatures during bon firing. Additionally, this paper
examines the indigenous practices related to open firing, such as the use of specific kinds of fuel, howpots are placed in open fires, and the length of firings.
In the area where the Ari people live, there are more than 20 villages<6> where potters and theirrelatives live together. Of these, I observed open firings in seven of the potters' villages. I conductedinterviews with over 20 potters out of hundreds who have made their pots for more than 10 years. I
joined in their pottery making, and I lived with potter Land her relatives in villageS and with potter
M and her relatives in village G for 4 months each. I used the Ari language in my fieldwork.
I measured the dynamics of temperatures in open firings 13 times, eight times in the dry seasonsand five times in rainy seasons, in two places from January 29,2000, to June 18,2001 (Table 1). I
measured the open firings of potter L eight times and those of potter M five times. One thermoelectric couple was placed in each open-firing place. I started measuring the temperature when a potter
put her pots in the fire in the open firing place and stopped recording when the potter took her potsfrom the fire.

Table 1. Lists of open firing in research
date
DIMlY

place

numberof pots

durationof firingheating
start time

terminationtime

29/01/2000

s

13

2h57m

8:12

11:09

albi (Asteraceae, Aspilia Africana), dried grass,fresh grass

10/02/2000

s
s
s
s
s
s

22

2h6m

8:17

10:23

albi, dried grass, fresh grass

8

1 h30m

7:05

8:35

albi, dried grass, fresh grass17

1 h40m

7:05

8:45

albi, dried grass, fresh grass

02/10/2000
04/12/2000
07/12/2000
29/12/2000
18/01/2001

fuels

14

1 h54m

7:12

9:06

albi, dried grass, fresh grass18

1 h37m

15:50

17:27

albi, dried grass, fresh grass26

1 h25 m

7:40

9:15

albi (c.a. 30 kg), dried grass, fresh grass (c.a.
30 kg)

19/03/2001s31

1 h40m

6:39

8:19

albi, dried grass, fresh grass

21/05/2001

G

50

2h6m

7:41

9:47

albi {c. a. 50 kg) culms of maize {c.a. 30 kg)
dried grass, fresh grass(c.a. 45 kg)

31/05/2001

G21

1 h25 m

7:40

9:15

albi (c. a. 15 kg) culms of maize (c.a. 10 kg)
dried grass, fresh grass (c.a. 45 kg)

04/06/2001

G31

1 h40m

8:14

9:54

albi (40-50 kg) culms of maize (10-20 kg)
fresh grass(c.a. 45 kg)

11/06/2001

G17

1 h30m

8:32

10:02

albi (c.a. 30 kg) fresh grass (c.a. 30 kg)

18/06/2001

G

52

2h

7:43

9:43

albi (70-105 kg) dried grass, fresh grass(120-180 kg)•Pot size in open firings: le~s than 50 em in height and less than 100 em in largest circumference

KANEKO: Open Firing Techniques as Community-based Technology

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I used a K-type thermoelectric couple and digital thermometer (TNA-120, Tasko, Japan) for
temperature recordings. The length of the thermoelectric couple was 100 em. The thermometermeasured from 100 to 1200°C. The temperature during open firing ranged from 50.0 to 300.0oC,
and the thermometer was accurate to 0.1 °C. The sampling period was two times per second, and thetemperature was recorded every minute.
I conducted a preliminary experiment on open firing in Japan using the same instruments. The
results of that experiment, shown in Appendix I, revealed the effects of the proportion of shamot,
ground up earthenware from Ethiopia, in the clay, which was set at 10, 20, or 30%. The author formed
pots with the shamot, and the shape of the pots was the same as in Ari pottery. I fired several samples
in a gas-fired kiln 0.3 cubic meters in size and in a LPG fire pit to obtain the contraction percentage,
coefficient of water absorption, and the refractoriness of the clay from Ethiopia (Appendix).
2.3. Research area

The research area is located in southwestern Ethiopia. The administrative area is called the SouthOmo zone (Fig. 1). According to the demographic census, the population of Ari is 200,000 people(Bureau of Finance and Economic 2007). The Ari speak the Ari language, which is categorized asan Omotic language. Most Ari, especially males and students, can also speak Amharic, which is thedominant language in this area.
The Ari divide their area into two ecological zones, called dizi and dawla in the Ari language. Dizi
is located in the highlands, with an elevation of over 1,600 msl, and dawla is located in the lowlands,
with an elevation ofless than 1,600 msl. They choose and cultivate certain kinds of crops according to
the ecological environment. Potters and their relatives usually live in dawla near rivers and wetlands.
The soil in this area usually has high clay content.
The Ari people divide each year into two seasons, haashin in the Ari language that means dry
season, and bergi in the Ari language that means rainy season. Haashin lasts from October to March,

CJ ETIDOPIA
0 Addis Ababa
0

0

••

t

Captital city
Lake

~

Okm

Research area

Fig. 1. Research Area

200km

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and bergi is from April to September. According to the 1999 data on M and S villages, whichhave altitudes of -1,600 msl, the temperature in this area varies between 10 and 30oC year-round.
According to the 1999 humidity data for S village, the highest humidity was 80 percent in the dry
season, and the lowest was 30 percent in the rainy season.
Ari people cultivate ensete, <7> barley, and various kinds of pea in dizi and yam, taro, maize, and several kinds of vegetables in dawla. Ari people who live in both dizi and dawla exchange their crops
in local markets twice a week (Shigeta 2002). Earthenware is also traded between potters and users
at these markets.
Pots are the most numerous type of object in Ari households, followed by farming implements.
The Ari use pots creatively for different kinds of cooking. According to my interviews, which
included valid responses from 135 households, the average number of pots used in cooking< 8> was
12. <9> According to Ari married women who had experience using ironware as cooking utensils, theycannot cook potatoes with ironware as well as with earthenware. <to) They could not bake the very thin
Ethiopian bread called injera with ironware because iron has higher heat transferred per unit timecompared with earthenware. However, they could bake injera without burning it in earthenware if
they used a specific kind of thin twig and controlled the fire very carefully. <t t> Although the Ari use
plastic water containers as carrying utensils, they also prefer to use pots as water containers because
it keeps the water cold. 0 2>
There is a social group among the Ari people known as mana in the Ari language. <tJ> The managroup consists of three social groups: the gashi-mana, tila mana, and foka-mana groups. The tila managroup consists of women potters and their relatives, and the foka-mana group consists of male blacksmiths and their relatives. When a daughter from the potter group is 6 years old, she can fully participate in making pots. Most girls observe their mothers' work and try to make pots by themselvesfrom the very beginning. When they are 15 or 16, they can marry men who belong to the fila managroup. Usually girls leave their home villages and go to the villages where their future husbands wereborn and raised to live with their in-laws <t 4>.

3. POTTERY-MAKING PROCEDURES:
CLAY DIGGING, POT FORMING,AND OPEN FIRING
This chapter represents an analysis of the data on ethno-thermometric dynamics in open firing andevaluates the conditions of open firing to find out how Ari pots are fired without exploding.
3.1. Dynamics ofopen firing

Most ceramic firing in Japan uses various kilns, such as the climbing kiln, gas kiln, electric kiln,
and paraffin kiln. Each kiln is distinct in terms of its fuel, structure, and the method of controlling
temperatures during firings. However, it is common to all kilns that the temperature increases at aconstant rate until it is above 1,000°C, where it can remain for several days. It is also common that all
kiln firings must avoid exposure to air after firing because of the risk of explosions when the objects
are cooling down {Nagumo 1998b). According to Hakusui {1990), clay 15> explodes when it heats toa high temperature because moisture contained in the clay boils away, and the volume and crystal
construction of clay tautomerizes, creating a new crystal structure. Because of this chemical responseto heat, most ceramic artists prepare their raw materials with a screen to ensure homogeneous particles.
The temperature of the Ari potters' open firings that I measured rose in temperature to 600oC overa period of up to 40 minutes from the beginning.<16> The highest recorded temperatures in all open
firings ranged from 400oC to more than 800°C. Mter the highest temperatures were reached in the
open firings, temperatures gradually decreased. The shape of the dynamic of ethno-thermometricdata can be regarded as the general open firing ethno-thermographic data because all data recorded
showed the same tendency, and secondary source material (Tobert 1984a, Woods 1984, Gosselain

KANEKO: Open Firing Techniques as Community-based Technology

7

1992, Smith 2000) also shows the same results.0 7>
If climbing kilns were used for firings, the rapid temperature rise would trigger an explosion andcause cracks in the ceramics because the moisture contained between particles in the clay would
evaporate, causing the ceramic itself to contract. However, when open firing is used, there are virtually no pot explosions. Some Ari households have pots over 10 years old that are still used for cooking. In the next section, the characteristics of the clay that withstands this drastic rise in temperatureare examined.

3.2. Clay extraction and processing
There are at least 30 local kinds of clay to which potters have given vernacular names. The mostcommon method of obtaining these kinds of clays is digging the ground with shovels and knives. The
case of potter L and her husband shows the most common procedure for digging clay.
In village S, it is common for potters to get the clay as a couple, such as a husband and wife team.
The clay is located in the wetlands, about 1.5 km northwest from the potters' houses. It took about
30 minutes for potters to get to the place. Although the distance between a clay place and potters'houses was the same for all for Ari potters, some potters occasionally took about 2 hours to walk to
get the clay.
When potter L and her husband got to the clay place, they brought a locally made knife called
washi a!fo. It has a blade of about 30 em. They also brought a plastic tube and ensete leaves andrachises. When I accompanied them, her husband always dug between 1 and 1.8 meters into theground and took water out from the ground with the plastic tub. Mter that, he cut and removed theclay with the knife. The process took 3Q-40 minutes.
Whenever L's husband took the clay from the ground, he asked potter L whether the clay was
good. This usually depended on the depth from which it was removed. If it was deemed acceptable,potter L collected the clay<•s> and wrapped it in the ensete leaves. They walked back the same way totheir home with about 30 kg of clay. Although potters typically used the clay for forming pots on thesame day it was dug from the ground, if they assessed that the clay had too much moisture, they left
it with ensete leaves under the ensete tree. In that case, most potters started making pots the next day.
In the case of potter L, she often started making her pots the next day.
In general, potters make their pots in their workplaces near their main house. It is rare for pottersto get together and make their pots at one place. According to their explanations, the pots would
break if someone were to see them during the pottery-making process. Although potters prefer tomake their pots alone, it is common for potters and their daughters to make pots at the same place.
First, potters usually put three or four handfuls of clay onto the stone, called mula, and hit it witha small stone for 2Q-30 minutes. Then they mix that clay with shaami, which is ground-up broken
pots. <• 9 >Potter L mixed about 7.5 kg of clay with about 2.5 kg of shaami. She took an hour and a half
to pound the clay and shaami and to remove small stones and organic substances such as leaves androots (2000/9/17). In the case of potter L, over the eight times I observed her mixing the clay, theproportion of shaami in the clay was 15-50%. In the case of potter M in village G, the proportion of
shaami in the clay was 5Q-90% over six measurements. These differences might stem from the different sources of the clay.
In Japanese ceramic making, it usually takes 3-4 days to remove impure substances from the clay,
and the clay is preserved for about 10 days after the moisture in the clay reaches a moderate level. It
is said that these process avoid the cracking and explosion of ceramics because the process increase
the plastic property of clay. Mter preservation, ceramic artists carefully rub the clay to get rid of air
bubbles and to equalize the moisture contained in the clay (Nagumo 1998a, Mori & Kazama 1976).
Preparing the clay in Japanese ceramics takes much longer than in Ari pottery making.
Mori (1987a) pointed out that cracking and explosions are avoided in pots in Bamessing, Cameroon,
because potters mix clay with shamot at a ratio of about 20 percent of the clay weight. According to
his explanation, if the percentage contraction of the clay decreases when the ratio of the coarse grainof the clay increases, it does not contract and expand during the drying stage and in open firing. <20>

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Ari potters also mentioned that the amount of shaami in clay is related to the pots' cracking andexploding during open firing.
On February 10,2000, the earthenware of potter Lin villageS exploded during her open firing.
This was the first time I observed pots exploding, although I observed dozens of open firings. Potter
L explained to me that someone who had an evil eye might have seen her pots during her forming
stage. However, she reminded me that pot explosions could be avoided if she mixed clay with moreshaami when she prepared her clay. The data below address potter L's explanation, showing the correlation between pot explosions and the amount of shaami in clay.
The experiment: the correlations between pot explosions and the proportion of shaami in clay
[Method]-Clay preparation and forming pots
There were three clay samples with three different proportions of shaami. I made pots in theAri way of pottery making. Mter forming the pots, I left them at room temperature for about 1
month. The proportions of shaami were as follows:(A) 10% shaami in clay for a terra-cotta pot(B) 20% shaami in clay for a terra-cotta pot(C) 30% shaami in clay for a terra-cotta pot[Open firing]
The fuel used for open firing was scrap pieces of cherry blossom wood and fresh grasses. For
pre-heating, a charcoal fire was put in each pot, and samples A, B, and C were placed arounda fire for about 30 minutes. During pre-heating, another place was paved with scrap pieces ofcherry blossom wood, and a charcoal fire was made on it. The pots were placed on the scrap
pieces of cherry blossom wood, and the pots were covered with fresh grasses. The length of firing
was about 2.5 hours. There was a drizzly rain on the day of the experiment.
[Results]
About 10 or 20 minutes after starting the open firing, I heard the continuous bang of pots fromthe open firing. Mter the firing, samples A and B exploded, but sample C was fired without any
explosions or cracking.
According to the results of this experiment, there is a high possibility that putting a certain amountof shaami in the clay can avoid explosions and cracks in the pots. Ari potters use clay without any
adjustments such as equalizing the clay particles, and mix an amount of shaami before forming theirpots. Although these practices would promote explosions in the case of kiln firing, in the case of open
firing with small amounts of fuel and lasting only for a short time, these are apparendy necessary
conditions to avoid pot explosions during firings.
3.3. Shaping the pots
When ceramic artists shape ceramics using a wheel, they carefully assess the moisture contained in
the clay as well as water on their hands (Mori & Kazama 1976). This is aimed at avoiding cracking
and explosions, as using clay with different levels of moisture to shape ceramic ware could be one of
the reasons for these negative outcomes.
When the coiling method, in which clay is coiled into a rope to shape into a pot, and the pasting
method, in which pieces of clay are shaped and pasted together to shape into a pot, are used, it would
be preferable to use half-dried clay because it is much easier to shape into a pot (Mori & Kazama
1976). In these methods, pots are dried gradually in a shady area to avoid deformation and cracking,which would occur due to the difference in the dehydration rate if the pots were set to dry in the sun(Mori &Kazama 1976).
On the other hand, Ari potters start shaping their pots immediately after their clay is processed.

KANEKO: Open Firing Techniques as Community-based Technology

9This paper uses the most popular pot, which is called tila in the Ari language, as an example. Tila pots
have a rounded bottom, a rectangular upper part, and a handle. They are used to steam root crops,
hold water, and brew alcoholic beverages. Potters follow common stages of forming tila. Forming tila
consists of four stages: bakushi, gidibul, gochi, and galtsi (Fig. 2), words that are derived from verbs in
the Ari language that express action. <21l In the first stage, bakushi, the pottery maker forms a shallow
bowl. In the second stage, gidibul, the potter expands the bottom part into a ball-like shape that ismore than double the size of the bowl in bakushi. In the third stage, gochi, the potter adds some clay
to the surface to form the narrow-necked upper part. In the final stage, galtsi, she again adds clay tothe surface of the upper part to form the handles.
Although all pottery makers in village S followed these four stages, each potter used different
periods of time for drying the clay in each stage. For example, potter L tended to dry her pots in a
shady area and put cloths on her pots during the nighttime, and she took 2 days to finish a pot. On
the other hand, potter N dried her pots in the sun, and she took only 1 day to finish a pot. Both potters dried their pots in the sun before open firing. In the case of the two potters' firings, there were
almost no pot explosions except for the single previously noted case with potter L. During all fourstages, potters usually fixed the cracks in pots by smearing them with clay so that the clay would still
be soft. They never broke their pots during the process of pottery making. Potters shine up the potswith their own crystals within 2-3 days after shaping them. This work brings out a luster on the pots.
Mter shining up the pots, potters fire them on the next day 22 > or, at the latest, within a week. Potters
put their pots in the sun just one day before open firing. They turn them to equalize the dryness ofthe pots according to the direction of sunlight.

Bakshi

GidibulGochi

GaltsiFig. 2. Four stages of pottery making

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Nilo-Ethiopian Studies

3.4. Open firing
Each potter has her own open firing place, which is called baka in the Ari language, in her husband'scompound. Several potters never put their pots together in one firing place, and it is common foreach potter to fire her pots by hersel£ The scale of their open firings is diverse. A potter on one occasion fired only one pot of about 30 em in height, whereas another potter on another occasion fired
about 50 pots ranging from about 20 to 50 em in height.
Potters put their pots around the fire, which is usually their kitchen range, to warm them before
open firing, and they put a charcoal fire inside each pot to warm them from the inside. Mter the potsare sufficiently warm, the potter puts dried albi twigs (Asp ilia Africana) in the baka. The albi twigs arearranged over a radius of1.3 to 2 meters. Potters carefully face the mouths of the pots upward when
they set out their pots on the baka and then put the charcoal fire on the albi twigs. They cover thepots with albi twigs and then with dried grass, followed by fresh grass. Potters pay special attention
to collecting specific grass species, such as palki (Cyperaceae) in the Ari language and garuda (Poaceae)
in the Ari language.
Mter the potters cover the pots with the different kinds of fuel, smoke from the baka rises, and it
bursts into flames after about 10 minutes. The temperature of open firing rises to about 600oC within
40 minutes, and then the temperature increases further to 60Q-800°C. The albi and dried grass burnwell in the first 3D-40 minutes, and the fresh grass creates the firing condition, enveloping the pots
and maintaining the high temperature for about 2 hours. To test whether the pots are completely
fired, the potters remove them from the firing place even if the fire is still burning. When the pots
are fired, the potters smear glue made from starch, which is in turn made from cassava and ensete, on
the surface of the pots. <23 > When the potters have finished this work, the pots are ready to be sold at
the local markets.
In Japanese kiln firings, ceramic artists are careful when putting their work in the kiln and setting
the fire. They are very careful to raise its temperature at a constant rate (Nagumo 1998b). Ceramicartists place their full attention on stabilizing the temperature, and they utilize several indicators suchas thermometers and the color of the fire to adjust the amount of fuel and the atmosphere. On theother hand, how do Ari potters fire their pots so that they are able to produce long-lasting pots without any indicators of the temperatures of the open firing? What are the criteria by which they figureout which pots are completely fired?

4. OPEN-FIRING PRACTICES AMONG WOMEN POTTERS
4.1. Open.firing techniques
4.1.1. Conditions of open firing
Most Ari potters explain that open firing is the most difficult of all pottery-making techniques.
Most unmarried girls cannot perform open firing. Some young potters who are newly married ask
their mothers-in-law to burn their pots together with hers in her baka.
There are about 20 potters' villages in Ari. Open firings were observed in seven villages of the
20. The temperatures of the open firings of potter L in village S and of potter M in village G were
measured with a thermocouple (Table 1). Following her marriage, potter L, whose estimated age wasaround 35, moved with her husband to villageS, where they have lived for more than 15 years (2002interview). She lives with her husband and her son, who is 12 years old. She brought her pots to local
markets every 2 weeks, and she made 10 to 40 pots in each open firing. On the other hand, potter M,
whose estimated age was around 50 and who lives in village G, has been married for more than 30
years. She has four daughters and two sons, and two of her daughters are already married. During
fieldwork in March 2002, potter M lived with her husband and their unmarried daughters. She fired
her pots once every week. Potter M fired her pots as well as her daughters' and her sons' wives' pots in
her open firings at that time. In each open firing, she fired approximately 50 pots.
I analyzed potter L's open firing on October 2, 2000, to examine the entire process from collecting

KANEKO: Open Firing Techniques as Community-based Technology

11

fuel for the firing to taking pots out from open firings. Background information underlying the casestudies below will also be explained. Figure 3 shows the dynamics of firing temperatures and potter
L's actions during her open firing on that day.
[Case study 1: Open firing of Potter L]
Potter L went to collect fuel for the next day's open firing on October 1, which was a fineday. She took a rope made of ensete rachis to bind the twigs and her sickle, and went to her
acquaintance's fallow. Mter a 15-minute walk, L reached the fallow and collected albi (Aspilia
Africana). She snapped an albi twig, which was about 80 em long, in two. I tried to work with
her and asked her what kind of albi I should collect. Potter L answered that strong albi turn thecolor of the pots' surfaces red, and pointed to twigs of about 2 or 3 em in diameter. She boundthese twigs into a bundle weighing about 30 kg and brought it home on her back.
Mter that, her son showed us a field with a huge amount of dried grasses, and we went togather the grass. Because the landholder was not her acquaintance, potter L quickly collected
dried grass and bound it into a bundle weighing about 30 kg within 30 minutes. That night, Lpolished the pots with their own crystals until midnight and put the pots around the kitchen
fire to keep them warm.
On October 2, she started at 6 in the morning by putting a charcoal fire in 10 pots. Every
10 minutes, she turned the pots to equalize the heat. I asked her the reasons for putting thecharcoal fire inside the pots and turning them. She replied that if she did not do this, the pots
would explode. L's husband went to get more fresh grass near the wedand commons. He cameback with about 30 kg of fresh grass balanced on his head within 50 minutes.
Potter L sprinkled ash in her baka and prepared a firing place 1 m 25 em in radius where thealbi twigs would be placed. In response to my question of why she sprinkled ash before putting
the albi twigs in the baka, she explained that the pots would explode if the ground contained too
much water. Potter L placed the pots on the albi twigs and then put the charcoal fire on top.
Mter she put all the pots on the albi twigs, L and her husband put dried grass and then fresh
grass over them. The open firing became a cone shape of 2.5 m in diameter and 1.5 m in height.

Temperature,
Celsius

900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
'\\)

Oo\)

~\)

Duration of firing, minutes
Fig. 3. Open firing on 02/10/2000

12

Nilo-Ethiopian Studies

Ten minutes after beginning the firing, the thermocouple showed 202°C. The open firing burst
into flames at 275°C. Potter L explained to me that the surfaces of the pots would not turn a redcolor if they were not fired slowly when it was rainy (Fig. 3 [1]).
About 30 minutes into firing, the pots had reached a temperature of 667°C. At this point, .L
peeked at the inside of the cone-shaped open firing through a hole that she made with a long
wooden stick. She continued to make other holes in the cone-shaped open firing to monitor
how the pots were doing (Fig. 3 [2]). She said to me that the pots were not red yet. She put theremaining fresh grass over the open firing. About 40 minutes after beginning to fire the pots,
the temperature had reached 700°C. Potter L started preparing porridge from cassava flour in
her kitchen to smear on the fired pots. Mter that, she came back to the firing place and looked
inside the cone-shaped open firing through a hole (Fig. 3 [3]).
About 50 minutes after beginning the firing. L slowly turned the pots inside the center ofthe open firing (Fig. 3 [4D. Mter L served breakfast to her husband, about 90 minutes into
the firing, she went to the firing place and took the pots from the firing place (Fig. 3 f5D. She
explained to me that they would be cracked, itsuri in the Ari language, if they were left inside thefiring for too long. She smeared cassava porridge on the surface of the pots. Mter two hours, shewrapped the pots in ensete leaves and brought them to local markets on her back.
4.1.2. The color of pots and firings
Pot firings in the Ari language are known as atsu. <24> This expression is used not only for pot firings
but also for steaming pots and so on. However, they never use the expression that pots are "fired,"
atsuta in the Ari language, or "not yet fired," atsuki in the Ari language, when potters peek inside thecone-shaped open firing through a hole. Potters always used the expression that pots "have turned
red," zeita in Ari language, or "have not turned red," zeiki in the Ari language.
At local marketplaces, potters compare their pots to see if their pots are zeita. For example, a potter
may make a negative comment that other's pots did not become red but are black if other potters havebrought pots with red and black spots. On one occasion, a potter herself mentioned that she could
not make her pots red. I heard this kind of discussion from potters at many local markets. <25> The
color of the surface of the pots is one of the most significant criteria for their quality.
According to potters, one of the most important influences of the color of the pots' surfaces is fuel.
According to potter 0 in village I, who has been making pots for more than 40 years, fresh grass isa necessity for open firing to make the pots turn red. If only dried grasses are used in open firings,
the fire will burn for a short time, and the heat will dissipate too quickly. However, if fresh grass isused to cover the open firing, the pots will become red because the heat will increase under the fresh
grass while only some smoke dissipates. <26> According to her, the pots turn from gray, their color after
they are dried in the sun, to black, and they turn from black to red when the flames spread. Pots thatremain black are much more fragile than pots that have only been dried in the sun.
To make the pots turn red, it is crucial to make a hole in the cone-shaped open firing with a long
wooden stick. Potter L started making holes in the open firing with a long wooden stick within 30
minutes. Other potters whose open firings I observed used the same method. According to potter L,
because flames spread from inside to outside in a vorticose manner, it is easy for potters to check thecolor of the pots and to move and turn a pot in the open firing. <27>
However, on rare occasions, potters have been unable to turn the color of pots red even though
they used fresh grass and controlled and monitored the pots in the open firing. In such cases, potters
put fresh grass on the cone-shaped open firing when it is burning at high temperatures. In cases inwhich there is insufficient fuel, potters put albi twigs on the black-colored pots and cover them withfresh grass again. <28>
According to potters, the amount of fuel used for firing pots is not always the same. The amountof fuel is determined by to the materials used and the pots to be fired, such as the type of clay, numberof pots in one open firing, and the climatic conditions on firing day. For example, most potters invillage S specifically mentioned that pots will crack, itsuri in the Ari language, if the amount of fuel

KANEKO: Open Firing Techniques as Community-based Technology

13

is too great. According to them, itsuri pots will not last long. Potter L tended to take her pots out
early to avoid itsuri.
4.1.3. Method of getting fuel for firings
Almost all of the potters I interviewed mentioned that pot firings in the rainy season require a lot offuel and must be slow burning or else the pots do not turn red. Potter M in village G and potter L invillage S collected one more bundle of about 30 kg of fresh grass in the rainy season than in the dry
season. According to temperature data from open firings, there is a rapid rise in temperature within
40 minutes after beginning open firing in the rainy season (Fig. 4). On the other hand, this rapid risein temperature occurs within 15 minutes in the dry season (Fig. 5). In the case of the October 2, 2000,
firing, potter L placed more fresh grass to cool the fire when it burst into flames.
In addition to the amount of fuel, the quality of fuels is important for the pots to turn red. Albi,
which is widely collected and used as fuel for pot firings, was easily available in the research area, andpotters prefer hard and thick twigs. If potters cannot get albi, they use culms of maize and sorghum.
According to potters and their husbands,pa/ki (in the Ari language; i.e., Cyperaceae) is used as valuable materials for roof construction and garuda (in the Ari language; i.e., Poaceae) is the most usefultype of fresh grass. On the other hand, they also know that the color of pots will not change if ganta(in the Ari language; i.e., Commelinaceae) and zalushi (in the Ari language; i.e., Compositae) are used,
and they never use them as fuel for open firings.
In Ari open firings, twigs, dried grass, and fresh grass are used as fuel, and the temperatures risefrom to 60Q-800"C. It takes about 2 hours to finish firing pots for practical use in cooking. On theother hand, the temperatures of climbing kilns rise to about lOOO"C to keep the fire going for 1 week.
Climbing kilns need a lot of fuel to maintain such a high temperature, and of course fuel is required
for the building of the kiln itsel£<29 ) Compared with kiln firings, open firings need less fuel. In terms

Temperature(Celsius)
900

Drastic increase in temperature
within 40 minutes

8001~------------~----------------------------~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~
Duration of open firing (minutes)
Fig. 4. Change in temperature during open firing in the rainy season

14

Nilo-Ethiopian Studies

Temperature(Celsius)
9oo~r=~~----~------~----------------~

Drastic increase in temperature
within 15 minutes

800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100

Duration of open firing (minutes)
Fig. 5. Change in temperature during open firing in the dry seasonof producing pots for practical use in cooking, open firing is regarded as an energy-efficient firing
method.
The amount of fuel for open firings used by the Ari people cannot be compared with the fuel used
for cooking in their households. Potters and their relatives make their livings from selling their pots.
Because some potters, husbands have small fields, usually less than 30 acres, potters need to collecttwigs and grasses from other farmers' fields. The necessary fuel for one open firing that fires about 20
mid-sized pots is at least 25 kg of twigs and about 45 kg of dried and fresh grasses. If 10 potters wereto carry out open firings, the amount of twigs required would weigh at least 250 kg, and the amountof dried and fresh grasses would be 450 kg.
Conflicts having to do with collecting culms of maize and sorghum and dried and fresh grasses
have occurred between farmers and potters. Although these fuels are used every day by farmers, theseare very useful resources for other purposes also. For example, although culms of maize and sorghum
are not suitable fuels for steaming potatoes because of their low heat, they are useful for baking thin
Ethiopian bread in a clay pan. Dried grasses left in fields after weeding can be used either as mulch or
as fuel for clearing the fields by burning. Fresh grasses can be also used as materials for maintenanceand repair of roofs.
For these reasons, some farmers do not like to let potters collect fuel from their fields without permission. Actually, potters are unable to produce red pots in their open firings if they are unable to getplenty of fuel for their open firings even when there are twigs and dried and fresh grasses around theirhouses. Potters devote themselves to forming good relationships with farmers so they will receive
permission to obtain fuels from their fields. They greet the landholders politely even if it means alonger walk when they collect fuel. Some potters give pots to the landholders as presents or help thefarmers in cases of sickness. Other potters give celebration money to farmers when farmers, children
get married or as housewarming gifts when they build new houses.

KANEKO: Open Firing Techniques as Community-based Technology

15

4.2. Expressions usedfor pots broken in firings
All potters use the same kinds of fuel and make a hole in the cone-shaped open firings with a wooden
stick. They peek at the inside of the cone-shaped open firings through the hole and tum the pots
inside to monitor the changing color of the pots over the 2 hours of firing. However, some potterspots break during firing even though they use clay from the same place, follow common pot-making
procedures, and use the same kinds of fuels as other potters. When potters face this situation, they
use the Ari expression aani to explain the circumstances.
The situations in which Ari people use the expression of aani can be classified into seven scenarios:(1) when referring to the human hand; (2) when evaluating someone's job performance;<30> (3) whenlearning techniques for making craftworks; (4) when describing someone's level oflearning; (5) whendescribing innate talent; (6) when discussing the relationship between pot makers' techniques and theways in which the pots are used; and (7) when discussing a potter's unique techniques that are seen as
distinct from those of other potters. Of these seven situations, situations (1) and (2) frequendy takeplace in Ari people's daily lives. On the other hand, situations (3) to (7) take place during pottery
making and local pottery-trading markets.

(3) When learning techniques for making craftworks: "aani kot esuta," translated as "her hands know
(pottery making}"
Potter P had been making pottery for 3 weeks. P, who lived with her children and mother, was preparing to leave her children from a previous marriage to marry another man in a different village.
P's daughter had just started making two or three small pots called bun-til once a week. She soldher pots for two Ethiopian birr, which was equal to 25 Japanese yen at that time. At that time P
planned to leave her small daughter and her elderly mother, I asked her whether she was needed toteach pottery-making techniques to her daughter, as she had just started making only one kind of pot.
She answered that her mother would teach pottery making to her daughter, and her daughter's aani
(hand) already knew (pottery making). In her answer, potter P made her daughter's hand nominativein her sentences.
It is widely said among the Ari that the very first pot made by a young daughter is of the bun-til
style. This narrative was supported by observations of five or six small girls and interviews with morethan 20 potters. Potter V explained the reasons that bun-til was the very first pot made by children:the technique of making bun-til includes almost all of the techniques needed to produce a variety ofpots, and the girl would not need to learn from anybody because her aani (hand) would already know
the basic pottery-making techniques. She also mentioned that the girls who learned how to makepots other than bun-til first were not able to make other kinds of pots later.
(4) When describing level oflearning: "aani kot zanmi," translated as "hand was hard," and "aani kot
rangami," translated as "hand was limber"
When I was making a pot, I could not equalize the thickness of the pot and sometimes made a holein the pot. When potter M saw my pottery making, she explained to me that my aani was hard andI would not make any holes in my pot if my aani were as limber as her aani. (Jt) That same evening,when I asked two daughters of potter M the meanings of aani expressions, they dangled their handsin front of me and this behavior meant aani was limber. If the potter's aani is limber, that potter canmake numerous pots efficiendy.
(5) When describing innate talent: "aani kot wanna," translated as "her hand was good"
When most potters in village G make coffee pots, they dry them in their houses for more than 2
weeks after they finish forming the pots and dry them in the sun before their open firings. Then,potters put their coffee pots around their kitchen fires to warm them before they fire them. If they do
not dry completely after forming or are not pre-fired in the kitchen fire, it is said that cracks would
appear between the necks and the bottoms of coffee pots. However, potter Qdried coffee pots in herhouse for only 3 or 4 days after she finished forming them and then dried them in the sun before their16

Nilo-Ethiopian Studies

open firing. She never pre-fired her coffee pots before open firing. Her coffee pots never exploded or
cracked even when she used the same kind of clay as other potters. Most potters explained that her
way of making and firing was because her aani was good.
The pots seen at the local markets did not have any decorations. Potters did not write their names
or decorate the pots. It is very difficult for most users to identify the maker of a pot at a glance.
Most users who buy pots at local marketplaces called all pottery makers tila mana, and almost no one
remembers the potters' names.
However, users could identify each potter on sight because users checked the pots and the makerof the pots together. Some users care about the correlation between a potter's unique way of making
pots and the durability of pots more than about the correlation between production location andstrong pots.
Potter 0 in village B had a very good reputation for her big clay pan for baking Ethiopian bread. The
price of her clay pan was much higher than that of other potters, reaching 100-200 birr.<32> According
to other potters and users, her clay pans were sold out before she put them on the ground. (JJ) In thiscase, most potters explained this situation as due to the potters' aani being good. In a contrasting situation, potters who did not make long-lasting pots fear bad publicity, such as people saying that theiraani is bad. Potters explained that their pots would not be purchased if the potters were regarded as
making bad pots that are easily broken.
(6) When discussing the relationship between makers' techniques and the ways in which pots areused: "kot tilnam ist aani kan wanee," translated as "her aani (pots) was good for that customers'
aani (use)"
K, a married woman in village GW, had 19 pots with their makers' names on them as ofJanuary 16,
2001. She explained to me that the pots were not good for her aani, even as other users praised theability of the potters who had made them. This shows that users also have their own aani, such asways of picking pots up, putting pots on the kitchen fire, and choosing fuel for cooking. Some users
insisted that there are some potters who can produce pots in their unique ways that are suited to theways in which K uses her cooking utensils. As just described, some users are extremely aware of theexistence of a few potters who can produce long-lasting pots for specific customers. Users try to look
for potters who have good aani to buy pots for use in cooking.
(7) When discussing a potter's unique techniques, as distinct from other potters: "aani kot gara,"translated as "her hands were different (from other potters)"
Potter R was not well on market day, and she asked her mother-in-law to fire her five clay pans.
However, her mother-in-law could not fire the clay pans properly, so some pans had cracks, andothers remained the color black. Potter R despaired over those failures, which arose from the differences between her aani and that of her mother-in-law.
Aani expressions, such as the aani are different, were often used by potters when they formed andfired their clay pans. Clay pans, called aksha in Ari language, are more than 50 em in diameter and areused for baking thin Ethiopian bread and roasting coffee beans. This clay pan<34> is regarded among
potters as difficult to shape and fire because the edges are easily cracked.
Potters M, 0, and S specialized in making aksha for more than 30 years. According to them,
nobody knows whether aksha are burned until they are taken out from the firing places. Potter M
mentioned that aksha firing was difficult because potters could not turn and move aksha from one
place to another during their open firing as could be done with other kinds of pots. Because potters
could only turn them at an angle of about 20 degrees in a counterclockwise direction or clockwise
rotation when they were being fired, potters took special care about the angle and direction of settlingaksha into the firing place. Some potters prayed when the aksha firing was started, and some would
keep other people away from their firings, even family members, because they were so nervous thatsomeone would approach the firing place.
There are at least six patterns of aksha pre-firings among potters (Table 2-1).

KANEKO: Open Firing Techniques as Community-based Technology

17

Potter T did not learn how to make aksha from her mother but from other potters. At the very
beginning, she could not make aksha without explosions and cracks if she followed the same procedure of another potter's aksha firing. Mter she continued with her trial-and-error process, she settled
on her own way of firing her aksha, which involved drying her aksha in the sun for a long time before

Table 2-1. Open Firing Variations for aksha
1. put aksha in kitchen furnace

2. roast aksha in furnace

3. put the upper side of aksha to theflame during open firingII

1. put charcoal fire on aksha

2. roast aksha in furnace

3. put the upper side of aksha to theflame during open firingIII

1. put aksha around furnace vertically

2. roast aksha in furnace

3. put the upper side of aksha to theflame during open firingIV

1. put aksha in furnace vertically

2. Put aksha between lila during open
firingV

1. dry aksha in the sun completely

2. roasting aksha in furnaceVI

1. put aksha in furnace vertically

2. put the upper side of aksha to theflame of open firing

3. put the upper side of aksha to theflame during open firing*Data were collected from January 2000 to June 2001.

Table 2-2. Types of aksha firing in terms of grandmother, mother, anddaughter relationships
Relationshiptypes of aksha firing

MotherIV

DaughterIVGrandmother

II
I
VI

MotherDaughter
Daughter
MotherDaughterv

MotherVI

Daughter

VI

MotherDaughter

III
III

MotherVI

DaughterVI

Elder sister
Younger sister•-: Cannot shape and burn aksha.
*Data were collected from January 2000 to June 2001.

18

Nilo-Ethiopian Studies

pre-firing and then putting them on the kitchen fire to turn the color of the aksha black. She settled
her aksha turned upside-down at the center of the open firing to heat the obverse side (Table 2-1,
firing type V). Potter T did not have any problems firing aksha after she settled on this method, andshe tried to shape and fire bigger aksha of more than 1 m in diameter. Similar cases in which pots
cracked and exploded if a potter were to mimic others' procedure for forming and firing aksha were
often observed. Daughters who worked in the same place as their mothers did not always follow thesame procedures as their mothers (Table 2-2). Most potters explained that their aani were different even though they shared close mother-daughter relationships, and their pot-forming and firing
methods were therefore different.
The types of fuel used for open firing and methods employed in the open firing, such as making
holes in the cone-shaped open firing with sticks, were almost the same among all of the potters I
observed, but potters always looked for ways to fire their pots without explosions and cracks by trial
and error, often analyzing the situations using aani expressions. Potters paid more attention to settling on their own methods through trial and error than to following the procedure common among
potters.
4.3. Expressions for the beauty ofpots ofthe Ari people

Ari people identify more than 30 kinds of pots. They classify them into specific categories in termsof varieties of potato pots, cooking pots, and number of household members (Kaneko 2004). It isdifficult for strangers to buy the right pots from among the thousands of pots at the market places.
Users explained that they like to buy pots that have malkz'35> at the markets. According to one married woman, a pot has malki if (1) it is a red-colored pot and (2) all of its parts are of the appropriate
size. She expressed that pots with malki are considered uzumi, i.e., beautiful in the Ari language.
Things that can be described as having malki include crop varieties, livestock, and aspects of craftworks, such as their height and weight. However, the expression that there is or is not malki is onlyused in relation to craftworks and is not used to describe crops and livestock.
In a pottery-making example, a potter pointed out her daughter's pots and told her daughter tocontinue making such pots, which have malki. At that time, the potter explained to me that thewidth of the mouth and the diameter of the bottom of her daughter's pots for cabbage cooking wereappropriate. Some girls who were familiar with pottery making cared deeply about shaping their pots
into the appropriate size. Potter W, who was around 15 years old, broke and reshaped the mouth ofa pot for distilling alcohol repeatedly because she could not shape a more narrow mouth. One young
single man, who was in search of a wife, praised a certain girl who had taken his fancy to the skies,
stating that she made pots for distilling alcohol with malki, specifically pointing to the size of thenecks and bottom of her pots.
There is no sense of standardization for assessing which pots had malki. Ari people creatively
use various kinds of pots for various individual situations, such as cooking methods and habits, thenumber of people who will be sharing the meal, and the nature of meal-time situations.<36> For
example, bun til used for coffee leaves are classified into two different types,jagajagarudinda bun til,which is used for boiling coffee leaves, and chirushidinda bun til, which is used for pouring the leaves
into cups. The mouth of chirushidinda bun til is 1-2 em narrower than that of the jagajagarudinda
bun til The kind of bun til used for bringing coffee and tealeaves to funerals is much smaller thanthe chirushidinda bun til Ari people identify and use pots differently in terms of their size, and drawloose boundaries between categories to adjust for the size of crops and cooking styles. Many pot
styles overlap such categories (Fig. 6).
The malk.i concept is not based on static criteria but contextualized standards that include the creative use of the pots. If potters were to make a pot of unusual size, it could be evaluated and accepted
as a pot with malki that would be suited to someone's specific purpose. In addition to accepting potsof unusual size, users order specially sized pots, which have malki for that user. Potter N took an orderfrom a customer to make an extremely wide taro pot, asni til in the Ari language, so that a dozen
pieces of taro could be packed within it. Potter N made the pot with a mouth 10 em wider than the19

KANEKO: Open Firing Techniques as Community-based Technology

circumference(centimeter)
140
120

X

100
~

Pots for boilingcoffee leaves inhousehold T

80
60
40

20 I Pots for pouring coffee
leaves in household T

0
0

10

0 for coffee leaves• for cabbage

20• for enset dish

40

30
X for yam

0 for alcoholo for maiz

50

60

Height (centimeter)

Fig. 6. Heights and circumferences of six kinds of pots in twenty three household (n=142)

most popular one. Although N's husband laughed out loud and said it was not a pot at all after N
fired it, her customer loved it and paid for it gladly when she saw it.
Although potters make pots of various sizes that have malki, nobody will buy a pot that is blackened because most people would regard it as not durable. Moreover, both potters and users mentioned that the pots made by galla, elders in the Ari language, last for a long time. According topotters, galta cannot make appropriately sized pots because their aani moves slowly or is unstable.
The pots that they make are not always lustrous, as they sometimes forgot to shine up the pots with
their own crystals. However, their pots are judged to be strong and unbreakable, even when dropped
on concrete. Actually, potters who mentioned them ordered and bought galla pots.
Potters must make their own judgments in every situation, considerations of climatic conditions,clay conditions, and the number of pots to be fired, and they learn these things through repeated trial
and error. They practice their own methods, which are based on their own aami37> to make strong andlong-lasting pots. On the other hand, users try to look for pots that have malki to suit their contexts
of use. Some users buy long-lasting pots, such as galla pots, even if they do not have malki; others
make their own choices based on their own experiences and considering the differences between potters' and users' aani.
Expressions of malki influence users' behaviors in buying pots among the Ari. Both users andmakers seriously care about the differences between types of pottery and methods of pottery making
and have a high level of interest in these matters.

5. CONCLUSIONS:HOW CAN WE UNDERSTAND ARI POTTERY-MAKING TECHNIQUES?
I summarize the characteristics of open firing in terms of physical aspect and potters' criteria for pot
firings in this chapter, and discuss Ari open firing as a community-based technology.

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5.1. Technological constrains ofAri pottery-making techniques
The temperatures of the Ari open firings rise to 600°C within 40 minutes. Compared with thetemperature of the Japanese climbing kiln, which increases at a constant rate until it reaches 1000oC,
where it stays for several days, it is to be expected that Ari pots would explode. This is because a rapid
temperature rise triggers explosions and cracking of ceramics as the moisture contained between
particles in the clay would evaporate, and the ceramic itself would contract.
However, examining the whole process of pottery making from clay extractions to firings, there
are several reasons that Ari techniques are able to avoid explosions and cracks. For example, in theirclay processing, potters mix clay with shaami, which is ground-up pots. In their forming process, they
shape their pots in a step-by-step manner with drying after each stage. In their open firing process,potters use specific kinds of fuel for the firings and have several methods, such as making holes andmoving pots from one place to another in the open firing, to check for the completion of the pots.
Each of these methods helps to avoid pot explosions, although these would not be effective in termsofJapanese ceramic practices.
At the same time, some of these methods are extremely effective at firing the pots without any
problems because the maximum temperature of the open firing is 800°C. For example, clay processing that entails mixing clay with shaami avoids explosions of pots even when there is a drastic risein temperature within a short time. The results of the experiments reported in Chapter 2 showedthat clay mixed with 30% shaami did not explode, whereas clay mixed with less than 20% shaami
exploded.
The use of twigs and dried and fresh grasses from fields as fuels for open firings would be expected
to produce fragile vessels because these fuels have low heat energy compared with the fuel used in kiln
firing in Japan. However, as Gosselain pointed out,Ari open firing is regarded as an energy-efficientfiring method in terms of producing items for practical use in their cooking. Also, the backgroundfor maintaining this method include two elements: (1) potters control the amount of fuel used foropen firings by adjusting the number of pots, responding to changes in climate, and choosing specifickinds of fuel; and (2) potters pre-fire their pots. Their methods, such as moving pots from one place
to another inside the firing places to turn the pots red, are effective at producing durable red pots.
Previous studies have shown that successful open firings rely on the specific location of the open
firing and that temperatures in open firings can vary. However, this study showed that potters' methods equalized the heat for all pots in a single open firing. Thanks to their techniques, they produce
long-lasting pots, which have lasted for more than 10 years.
These findings are based on rational correlative relationships among the technological elements,
such as the change in temperatures, duration of open firings, nature of clay processing, qualities offuels, amounts of fuels, and potters' methods in open firings. If Ari open firings are misunderstoodas consisting of primitive technological elements that produce fragile vessels compared with vessels
produced by kiln firings, it is because their firing techniques are being analyzed according to technological elements only. We also evaluated potters' behavior from a scientific perspective, which focuseson the rational combination of organic and technological elements. Pots among Ari people are produced, used, distributed, and sold in this area. Potters do not pay attention to technological data to
make pots but use trial and error to meet users' needs. In terms of these criteria, potters concentrateon meeting the scientific and rational needs for producing pots.
5.2. Open firing as community-based technologies
Users tend to select pots that have malki, and they are eager to buy from potters who have goodaani and can produce long-lasting pots suited for their unique cooking needs. Some users could
identify which potter of the many was suited for their specific needs, and they loved to buy her pots.
Information that users call upon in buying pots includes not only the shapes and colors of the pots
but also their previous experiences using the pots. Some users care about buying pots made by potterswhose aani are suited to the user's aani. No one can make long-lasting pots for every user, but there
are various potters who make long-lasting pots for various users.

KANEKO: Open Firing Techniques as Community-based Technology

21

Potters fire durable pots suited to their aani in open firings. Although girls learned pottery making
from their mothers, they do not always follow their mothers' methods of firing after they start supporting their families with their pottery making. Potters accept that there is not just one way for firing
pots with malki but that there are rather various ways for firing durable pots to suite their aani.
For example, as potter R explained (4.2.), her mother-in-law made R's pots explode and turned
them black in the open firing although they used clay from the same place and the same twigs andgrasses as fuel. In this situation, potters explained that the use of the expression of aani has a different
meaning. Moreover, as potter Qnoted, her pots would not break even without drying them for a longtime; on the other hand, other potters' pots would break even when they followed potter Qj; way offiring (4.2 (5)). When potters faced this situation, they used the expression that her aani was good.
However, they never try copy potter Qj; procedure by trial and error. Instead, they keep practicing
their own ways of firing pots.
Aani can be replaced by techniques and physical factors. However, the term aani does not apply
to the technological aspects of potters' work, such as the qualities and quantities of fuels, the ways ofplacing pots in open firings, and climatic conditions on open firing days. Aani expressions show theclose socio-technical relationships between the ways of making and ways of using the pots, and theyalso reveal the respect potters and users have for the process of trial and error used by the potters. The
differences between potters' open firing techniques and the expressions for respecting the differencesamong their unique ways of firing pots reveal the innumerable close socio-technical relationships
between potters and users. Also, aani expressions refer not only to the technological aspects of pottery making but also to social relationships between potters and users formed through the pots andthe techniques of pot making and using.
Potters fire their pots to adjust for physical factors and users' individual demands for cookware.
Ari pottery making as a community-based technology can be redefined as social behavior that isbased on relationships between humans, through pots, and between humans and objects. Each potter
understands when pot making is successful, which is contextualized in their sociocultural practices,
and accepts the evaluations of users expressed in terms of social relationships to help them, throughcontinuing trial and error, to fire durable pots that have malki.

ACKNO~EDGEMENTS

The field research on which this paper is based was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotionof Science with an academic research grant from 1996 to 1998 (research project number 08041059,
project leader; KAKEYA Makoto), a 1999 Kodansha Asia and Mrica Scholarship, and the 21st century program of the Ministry of Education. This paper was presented with co-authors SHIGETA
Masayoshi and KIMURA Takashi at the 8th conference of japan Nilo-Ethiopian Studies, 1999. I
would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who have supported my research.

NOTES(1) According to Gosselain (2008b), the bonfire technique, also known as open firing, is one of the simplest
and most widespread techniques used in Mrica.
(2) Gosselain has examined various aspects of Mrican pottery techniques and socio-cultural conditions(Gosselain 1992b, 1999,2000, 2008a).
(3) Yoshida (1984) proposed the idea of integrating modern technologies, such as decontextualized material
and resource management, disposal ofwaste materials, and recycling of energy, into people's lives in remoteareas.
(4) Shigeta (1994) researched Mrican people's experiences and knowledge ofindigenous agriculture and agricultural science for an extensive period of time. He pointed out that the logic underlying agriculture is22

Nilo-Ethiopian Studies

based on people's unique forms of standardization, which are not absolute but are contextualized in social
situations.
(5) See my other papers and my book on the process of learning, change, and innovation in potters' bodytechniques and pots in sociocultural contexts (Kaneko 2005, 2011, in Japanese).
(6) These numbers show all of the villages I visited and the subjects interviewed.
(7) Ensete is a perennial Musaceae plant. Ari people use ensete as a staple food. Because ensete looks likebanana plants, it is also called false banana. For more information, see Shigeta's 1988 paper on ethnobotanical studies of ensete and Brandt et al.'s 1997 Tree against Hunger on the general background of
ensete.
(8) A total of 130 students in grades 6, 7, and 8 gave valid responses to these questions, which focused on theiruse and purchase of pots (Kaneko 2004, in Japanese).
(9) The varieties of pots in this paper are based on vernacular names.
(10) According to Ari women in each household, they can cook taro and ensete in a clay pot. However, yams
and mashed ensete cannot be cooked in a clay pot.
(11) Lyone and D'andrea (2003) pointed out that the clay pan called Mogogo at their field site was more functional in terms of maintaining a constant temperature for baking the thin Ethiopian bread injera than wasan iron pan.
(12) After pot firings, the surfaces of the pots have small air holes (Mori & Kazama 1976: 132). This releases
heat from evaporating liquids so that the pots can cool water.
(13) Craft workers, such as potters, blacksmiths, and wood workers, are all called mana in this area where theGofa, the Maale, the Malo, and the Basketo live (Freeman & Pankhurst 2001). Mana people among the Ari
sell their craftworks direcdy to users, who are mosdy farmers, to make their livings. Mana people are culturally marginalized (Gebre 1995). For example, Ari farmers consider it taboo to share meals with mana
people. Farmers have also considered it taboo to establish kinship relationships with mana people. Evenamong the mana people, marriages between members of the potters' group, called lila mana, and membersof the blacksmiths' group, called foka mana, are considered taboo.
(14) Kinship among the Ari is paternal and is divided into two moieties, indi and ashenda. Field research
revealed that there were more than 16 clans among the 12 potters' villages as of February 2002. The malesin village S were from that village and belonged to the diru clan. On the other hand, 19 of23 females camefrom other villages, and they belonged to seven groups other than the diru clan.
(15) According to the criteria of the International Soil Science Society, a particle with a diameter ofless than
two micrometers (one micrometer is one centesimal millimeter) is called clay (Hakusui 1990: 3Q-31).
(16) Conditions of measurements, such as the place where instruments were placed in open firings, wind velocity, and potters' attitudes toward open firings, have a great influence on the results of measurements. The
maximum temperature in the center of an open firing was different from the temperature outside thefiring (Gosselain 1992a). The results of my measurements of open firings, shown in the graphs, are almost
exacdy the same as the data obtained by Gosselain and Smith in their studies.
(17) The largest number of pots in the open firings that I observed was about 50 pots, and the smallest was
about 10 pots. Measurements of the maximum temperatures and shape of the graphs depicting changes
in temperature for large and small firings showed no major differences.
(18) Mori (1974: 29), who taught ceramic techniques to college students in Uganda and also researched traditional pottery techniques, pointed out that one of the reasons for the lack of kilns was that there wasalmost no clay with fire endurance. According to his research in Uganda, the clay that was dug up in
Uganda was vitrified at more than 1300oC, and after that, it dissolved. The clay in the Ari area was vitrified
at more than 1300oC, but it did not dissolve (Appendix).
(19) It is well known that the method entailing incorporating the powder of ground broken pots into the clay
results in low heat-energy requirements. It produces vessels with high practical utility and also conservesenergy. For example, the ceramic association in Aichi prefecture has been trying to develop a recycling
program for ceramic production that involves re-using the powder of ground broken ceramics as half ofthe materials used in pots (Asahi.com, Aichi 2004.3.11, in Japanese).
(20) The pot-firing techniques in oven firings among the Moba people in northern Togo involve firing pots fora short time to avoid explosions while producing vessels with high practical utility. Mori (1987c) notedthat it was an unexpected technique when compared with the standard Japanese ceramic techniques, andhe insisted that the clay used by the Moba must have some special properties.
(21) Bakshi is translated literally as making a basic form; it is only used in pottery making. Gidibul is a com-

KANEKO: Open Firing Techniques as Community-based Technology

23

pound word derived from gidi, referring to the inside, and bul, meaning to extend. This word is also usedin pottery making. Gochi means pulling and is a term used in their daily lives. Ga/tsi means to smear, andis also used in their daily lives, such as smearing cow dung on the house walls. Potters use these words toexpress the stages of making pottery.
(22) Mter drying the pots in the sun, potters placed them around the furnace and turned them to dry and warm
the pots.
(23) Potters pour water containing special species of tree resin to just-burned pots to produce black pots inHarnessing, Cameroon (Mori 1992). According to Mori, compared with the techniques of the smoking
process for producing black pots, this method produces robust pots because the water sinks into the insidesof the pots thereby avoiding water leaks.
(24) Atsu means firing in the Ari language and is a verb stem.
(25) The type of clay depends on where it is acquired. There are several kinds of clay, including a whitish red
clay (tsanmi zeida) and a deep red clay (gaasha zeida). Potters identified each kind of clay related to thecolor of the pots after open firing.
(26) When she was a small girl, most potters only used big tree trunks as fuel. These days, big tree trunks havehigh cash values, making them too expensive to use as fuel for firing pots.
(27) Mori (1987b) pointed out that potters in the Nyamtug area of northern Togo made holes in the coneshaped open firing with long wooden sticks because this process allows more oxygen to enter to finish
firing the pots.
(28} Potter Lin villageS put fuel on the open fire again because the pots did not turn red (January 29, 2000).
At 140 minutes after beginning the second firing, the temperature had risen from 400 to 600°C. At 30
minutes from the beginning of the second firing, potter L started making holes in the open firing as
usual.
(29) About 70% of the heat of a kiln firing goes to the kiln walls and ceiling, while 20% goes to the ceramics
itself (Nagumo & Rords 1979: 152).
(30) For example, aanijookuta in the Ari language refers to one's inferior work abilities in farming and cooking
compared with others. For example, in one case, a husband gave his land to his two wives equally. Whenone wife used up the harvested crops before the next harvesting and the other wife did not, people said
that the wife who finished the crops was aani jookuta.
(31) Sentences such as "Aani an to zan mi. Ist aani mishi rangami maatsinku durzifu duru.foai"' were used, meaning,"Your hands are stiff. If your hands were soft, you would not make holes in your pots." Rangami is usedin many situations in daily life. Rangami can be translated as weak: zena ist rangami means one's bodyhas weakened. It can also be translated as to soften: ekena rangami means cabbage that has softened fromcooking.
(32) Aksha is a clay pan for baking thin Ethiopian bread, injera. This pan is round in shape and about one meterin diameter. It is 3-10 times more expensive than the cheapest pots.
(33) Her aksha were so popular among users because injera could be baked in her aksha without burning. Most
aksha need to be treated with oily plants, such as sunflower seeds, before they can be used, but her aksha
could be used to bake injera without such treatment.
(34) It is said that aksha are difficult to shape if young potters do not acquire proficiency in pottery making
because young potters have small hands. On the other hand, aksha were regarded as the easiest kind of pot
to make among some potters of the gashinama group, which is a different social group from tila mana. For
some gashinama potters, aksha was said to be learned first. This is a good example of indigenous technology in that the difficulties of making pots relate not only to the complexities of technological elements
but also to the interactions between socioculturally embedded common technologies among potters andindividual creativity, which are stimulated by social relationships between potters and users.
(35) This word comes from the Amharic word melk. Melk is used when discussing craftworks and cattle.
(36) Even in big households, small pots are used for cooking a portion for one person. On the other hand,very small households have a huge pot for cooking large amounts of food to be consumed on ceremonial
occasions and for group farming work.
(37) Potters mentioned that they did not always make durable pots and that they produced pots with different
features every time.

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Websitehttp://mytown.asahi.com/aichi/news01.asp?c=35&kiji=291 (Asahi com. Aichi 2004.3.11)

APPENDIX
Experiment 1. Shrinkage ratio, water absorption, and pyrometric cone equivalents of clay
Method:There were eight samples of clay. Samples 1 to 5 were from Ethiopia, and samples 6 to 8 were fromJapan.
• Shrinkage ratio:- Dried size: Measurements of eight sample sticks, which were dried at air temperature, were made.
Mter that, they were fired at 800oC, the maximum temperature of open firings using a gas kiln.
- Ftring size: Measurements of eight sample sticks, which were fired in the gas kiln, were made.
- Shrinkage ratio: Measurements were made by subtracting the firing size from the dried size anddividing by the dried size.
• Water absorption: Measurements of eight sample sticks were made by dividing the amount ofmoisture by the dried weight. The amount of moisture was calculated by subtracting the dried
weight from the weight before drying.
• Pyrometric cone equivalent: Eight samples shaped cylindrically with a height of one em wereplaced on one plate. Four such plates were used to examine pyrometric cone equivalents of clay atfour different temperatures: 600oC, 800oC, 1000oC, and 1200°C.
Results:• Shrinkage ratio: Sample 1: 11%; sample 2: 13.4%; sample 3: 13.2%; sample 4: 16.6; sample 5:
10.2%; sample 6: 6.8%; sample 7: 7.4%; sample 8:7.6%. The shrinkage ratio of Ethiopian clay was
higher than that of the Japanese clay.
• Water absorption: Sample 1: 23.7%; sample 2: 22.6%; sample 3: 26%; sample 4: 25.3%; sample 5:
21.1 %; sample 6: 18.8%; sample 7: 17.3%; sample 8: 18%. The water absorption of Ethiopian clay
was higher than that of the Japanese clay.
• Pyrometric cone equivalent: Neither Ethiopian nor Japanese clay melted at 1200°C. However, thesurfaces of all samples were vitrified.

MORIE KANEKO: Kyoto University, Nihonmatsu-cho, Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8501,]apan.