Of the more advanced pottery, Dr. Boas says, that of the Rio Grande pueblos was “a good deal behind the Peruvians artistically but second to none mechanically.” The Pueblo people have always dwelt in a land of cañons and high plateaus, rising from great stretches of sand that touch at last the far blue horizon. Here they were provided by nature with an inexhaustible supply of material suitable for pottery. Clay of a consistency perfectly adapted for this purpose is left by the sudden storms that wash through the deep arroyos and deposit therein a valuable sediment. The self-taught potters were not long in learning through experience just what admixture of sand would make this clay malleable and more durable. The colors of the stratified sandstone and clay taught them harmony as well as contrast, and the ochres and other mineral deposits provided them with the pigments they desired for the varied decoration of their jars. Thus was built up an art and a culture which deserves our admiration and should forever set at rest the careless assumption that the original Americans were a savage people at the time of the white invasion. Gradually certain vessels came to be set aside for purposes of religious or Shamanistic ceremonials. Mortuary jars for a long time were apparently no other than those used by the departed one in life, but eventually, like those dedicated to other ritualistic necessities, funeral and grave jars were differentiated and set aside as something to be especially reverenced and never otherwise employed. Imperfect _tinajas_, or the still larger jars intended for storage, are much used for the chimneys of pueblo houses, being built up one upon another till the requisite height is attained, when a coating of adobe-mortar fills in all chinks and makes a smooth outer surface; but it is believed that this occurred only after Spanish influence was introduced. Before this innovation the smoke escaped through the hatchway. At first, all vessels were probably moulded by the fingers of the potter from a lump of material; then, copying the wicker coils of the basket-maker, the potter rolled in the hands long ropes of clay, mobile and easy to build up spirally into any desired form. Nothing resembling a potter’s wheel has ever been employed in the pueblos, but a shallow foot of wicker, or a piece of a gourd often serves as a temporary support in order that the jar may be revolved by a touch of the artist’s fingers, without injury to the clay coil. We find, of course, that most enviable characteristic of all hand-work—the slight variations in modelling and in decoration that are lost when more mechanical processes are employed. The quality of the material varied somewhat according to the use to be made of the jars. Those for storage, either of grain or of water, or those for dyeing wool where weaving is a local industry, are of coarse clay and are plainer and heavier than the small receptacles made for daily use.