Brief Communications 711

he means by this ceremony is unclear, but historically the ritual peyote meal
was explicitly involved with first fruits ceremonies in Mexico. The meal con-
sisted of boneless meat, parched or popped corn in sugar water, and fruit-
traits which are retained everywhere in classical Plains peyotism. He correctly
lists "Deer symbolism" as being absent from the Plains peyote rite-but at
his methodological peril, since in Mexican peyotism deer meat, deer hoof-
prints, and the peyote plant itself are all specifically equated.
In brief, it would seem that Howard has advanced the interesting possibil-
ity of the connection between mescalism and peyotism but little beyond the
point where I left it nearly two decades ago as an auxiliary hypothesis; worse,
his ethnological direction is wrong.
The southern Athapaskans may eventually prove to be less of a primary
influence on Plains peyotism than was formerly supposed, though well docu-
mented evidence (ground altar, water drum, and other peyotist traits) still
supports their claim. But for other compelling reasons, such as the botanical
provenience of the red bean and peyote, we should still look southward-prob-
ably to Texas, the eastern Southwest, or northeastern Mexico-for the shaping
of the well-defined southern Plains peyote ritual, rather than to Algonkin
Midewewin or the as yet largely Siouan Red Bean Cult. This seems all the
more probable since the red bean has been found archeologically in Cave No. 1
at Site 2 in San Saba County, Texas, and on a Basketmaker horizon at Rio
Fuente in Chihuahua.'
WESTONLA BARRE,Duke University
1 WendellC. Bennettand RobertM. Zingg,TheTarahumara. Chicago,1935,p. 358; see also
A. T. Jackson,in Universityof TexasPublications,Anthropological
Papers,vol. III, no. 1, 1938,
p. 69.

RESIN-GLAZEDPOTTERYIN THE CHIN HILLS, BURMA

George M. Foster's recent note on resin-glazing in the Philippines (AA 58:

732f), calls to mind a similar occurrence in the Chin Hills of Western Burma.
My observations, made in the course of a brief linguistic survey in 1954, are,
at the suggestion of Dr. Foster, briefly detailed here.
In the Falam subdivision of the Northern Chin Hills, I spent a week in
the village of Lente, from which pots are exported widely through the sur-
rounding villages. Indeed, for domestic use pottery at Lente seems largely to
have replaced many of the wooden vessels so plentiful in other Chin villages.
Almost every day of my visit saw several women, laden with baskets of clay,
coming in procession from a deposit above the village. Each woman seems to
work her own clay, and sheds in the house compounds often shelter a number
of vessels in various stages of completion. I have not myself observed the
early stages of construction, and hence cannot say whether an aplastic is
added to the natural clay. However, four pots from Lente exhibit coarse, soft,
angular framents which seem both too large and too abundant to be a natural
inclusion in the deposit.
712 American Anthropologist [59, 1957]
To judge from photographs made by Stevenson (1943:75) at Lente, con-
struction of the vessels begins when the moist clay is paddled into cylindrical
form. Standing it on one end, the potter now uses a pestle to pound a hollow
into the other end, using the paddle occasionally to true the walls. Gradually,
she thins the walls upward between the pestle, which is held within, and her
hand on the outside. Then, with her fingers, she gives the vessel contour and
shapes the rim and lip. During this time, the vessel remains in place upon the
mat; it is the potter who moves about it, bending deeply from the waist (as
women also do when working taro or weeding the crops). Small vessels can be
entirely constructed by modeling, but in large pots-some beer pots stand
about 21 feet high-it is probable that the Lente form the upper part of the
wall by fillet-building. (This I later noted upon a vessel in the Yo Chin village
of Phaitu, in the Tiddim subdivision to the north, and conversation con-
firmed the practice.)
When the vessel has dried sufficiently, it is placed upon a ring of rags and
further shaped by paddle and anvil. The latter is an unworked river boulder
about four inches in diameter; the paddle is cord-wrapped, and so wielded that
the cord-marks run vertically up the sides of the vessel.
After they have taken final form, the pots are sun dried and are then given
a preparatory firing by standing them near small fires. The chief firing takes
place at sheltered spots near supplies of grass. Several women may work to-
gether in firing their pots. The vessels are laid mouth outward on the side,
resting upon a layer of grass, and are covered with a deep pile of the same ma-
terial. The self-kiln, once lighted, burns for approximately half an hour, with
occasional replenishment; the vessels are oxidized on the outside and reduced
within. As the fire burns down, one of the women lifts out each vessel upon the
end of a long pole thrust inside. Then she sets it down in a small hole, previ-
ously dug to receive the rounded base, and blows out the ashes. A deep vessel
may have burning grass thrust within it to complete either the firing or the
reduction.
Another potter then applies a block of resin (possibly obtained from one of
the abundant conifers) to the vessels. At Lente only the rim and lip are thus
treated, but in the Kamhau Chin village of Tonzang, in the Tiddim subdivision,
I made special note of overall resin glazes on water- and beer-pots.
Lente potters are skillful. While the fabric of their vessels is not very hard,
I saw no signs of breakage at a frequently-used firing spot near my house. A
variety of forms, including the mooted corn-popper (here also used for roasting
millet, corn, and sesamum), are made with creditable symmetry and close ad-
herence to shape canons.
THEODORE STERN, University of Oregon

REFERENCE CITED
H. N. C. STEVENSON
1943 Economics of the Central China tribes. Bombay.