Ceramic cooking pot / serving dish
date: label: Accession Date
content: 20 Mar 2018
label: Collection Date
content: 16 Oct 1982
name: label: Collector
content: Ms. Emilienne Ireland
label: Donor Name
content: Ms. Emilienne Ireland
notes: label: Notes
content: Ceramic pot in the shape of an animal on its back. The pot is ovoid, with head, tail and four paws at the proper ends. The pot has been polished, then slipped red on the exterior and painted black on the top and interior. The head has incised decoration.
label: Notes
content: Notes by the collector, Emilienne Ireland: Low-fired clay, red slip exterior, interior painted with a mixture of juice of a vine, soot, and water. "Ancestor spirit container" (yérupóhokána) Made by Kuta, a post-menopausal woman who was considered a skilled ceramist. She was a high-ranking Yawalapiti woman who married Kasueletumpa, eldest son of the Wauja chief Walakuyawatumpa. She lived most of her life in the Wauja village and learned Wauja ceramic technique. About the spirit represented in the pot: The Wauja occasionally find in their fields and forests ceramic sherds that are of a style quite different from what they make themselves. The sherds are from ceramic pieces that are notably thinner-walled than what the Wauja make. The sherds also feature inscribed designs and ornamentation quite different from that of Wauja ceramics, e.g. pre-Wauja (yérupóho) ceramic sherds. When I asked the Wauja if these sherds might represent ceramics made by recent ancestors of the Wauja, they said that they definitely did not, and that the sherds were made by spirits called yerupoho, who were perhaps ancestors at the beginning of time, but certainly not human ancestors. Look, they say, we cannot make pots with such thin walls. No one can, using the clay we have here. If we did, they would crack when we fired them. Those yerupoho were definitely spirits. Indeed, the sherds appear to be denser, heavier, and harder than the Wauja's relatively soft and friable low-fired ceramics.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 18 Oct 2019
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Piyulaga village, Mato Grosso, Brazil, South America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Wauja (Waurá)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 2074242
label: USNM Number
content: E435270-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Cooking Pot
physicalDescription: label: Length
content: 27.5 cm
label: Width
content: 18 cm
label: Height
content: 9.5 cm