of ware, or even a
portion of a vessel, retained its association permanently.

It must have been early observed that clay of one kind, applied even
thinly to the exterior of a vessel of another kind, produced, when
burned, a different color. With the discovery that clays of different
kinds burned in a variety of colors, to some extent irrespective of
the methods and the materials used in firing, there must likewise have
been hinted, we may safely conclude, the efficacy of clay washes as
paint, and of paint as a decorative agent.

Among the ceramic remains from the oldest pueblo sites of the
Southwest, pottery occurs, mostly in four varieties: the corrugated or
spiral; the plain, yet rough gray; white decorated with geometric
figures in black; and red, either plain or decorated with geometric
devices in black and white. The gray or dingy brown, rough variety,
resulted when a corrugated or coiled jar had been simply smoothed with
the fingers and scraper before it was fired. A step in advance, easily
and soon taken, was the additional smoothing of the vessel by slightly
wetting and rubbing its outer surface. Even this was productive only
of a moderately smooth surface, since, as learned by the Indian
potters long before, in their experience with the clay-plastered
parching-tray, it was necessary to mix the clay of vessels with a
tempering of sand, crushed potsherds, or the like, to prevent it from
cracking while drying; this, of course, no amount of rubbing would
remove. Hence, by another easy step, clay unmixed with a
grit-tempering, made into a thin paste with water, and thickly applied
to the half-dried jar with a dab or brash of soft fiber, gave a
beautifully smooth surface, especially if polished afterward by
rubbing with water-worn pebbles. The vessel thus prepared, when
burned, assumed invariably a creamy, pure white, red-brown or, other
color, according to the quality or kind of the clay used in making the
paste with which it had been smoothed or washed.

Thus was achieved the art of producing at will fictiles of different
colors, with which simple suggestion painting also became easy. Black,
aside from clay paste, was almost the first pigment discovered; quite
likely because the mineral blacks from iron ores, coal, and the
various rocks used universally among Indians for staining splints,
etc., would be the earliest tried, and then adopted, as they remained
unchanged by firing. Thus it came about, as evidenced