Most of the pottery was found in hundred-weights in débris heaps and scattered throughout all the clay floors in all the ruins with the exception of some enclosures in the Valley of Ruins. But such pottery can be shown to be of native make. To anyone casually inspecting the pottery it may appear as of one and the same make, save perhaps in the colour of the clay of which it is made. But there are wide differences in the pottery, both in the clays, the make, designs, ornamentation, colourings, and also in their locations and in their manufacturers, just as among the present natives. The Barotse pottery, for instance, is of a more substantial make than is that of any known period or tribe of Makalanga. The patterns are large, bold, and entirely geometrical, and are coloured yellow, red, or black, with the designs painted in strong contrast to the general colour of the pot. Thus black patterns are laid on yellow and red grounds, red patterns on yellow and black, and yellow patterns on black and red. A collection of Barotse pottery made by Major Corydon from north of the Zambesi is a facsimile in make and design of the Barotse pottery found at Thabas Imamba, Khami, Zimbabwe, and other ruins known to have been occupied by Barotse up to seventy years ago. A collection of pottery from Khami which was brought for comparative examination to Zimbabwe was at once claimed by the local Barotse as being of Barotse make, while the local Makalanga not only emphatically denied that it was of their class of make and design, but added that it was the work of the Barotse people. The encircling bands of ornamentation on Barotse pottery vary from 1½ in. to 3 in. or more in depth.[38] Thus Makalanga pottery has its own peculiar characteristics which are easily discernible on examination. It is generally found to be black with a highly polished surface. The bowls and pots have a lighter and more delicate appearance, and the excellent quality of clay used, and its thorough manipulation, enables it to be much thinner in make yet equally as strong as those of coarser make; the coloured decoration also is altogether absent, while the pattern is more neatly executed, and is enclosed in encircling bands of from only half an inch to one inch in depth. Further, the Makalanga have always decorated their pottery with protruding bosses of shapes and designs peculiar to themselves, the female breast pattern predominating. There are at least fifty different sorts of such protruding designs already found on undoubted Makalanga floors, and these have been selected for examination. The pot shown in the illustration facing page 90 of _The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia_ is of very old Makalanga work, of which many scores are found represented at Zimbabwe. Finds of native pottery bear no traces of the potter’s wheel. All native pottery is made by hand.