Pottery making is rapidly dying out through the greater part of this area, owing to the importation of more convenient and durable vessels. It is undertaken almost exclusively by the older women, who employ a fine light yellow clay mixed with sand or powdered quartz. They make vessels in considerable variety, both as to size and shape, which are used for the storage of water and dry material, as corn, beans, and achiote, and as cooking pots. They do not use a potter's wheel, but mold the smaller utensils by hand and build up the larger by the addition of fragment upon fragment of clay. The outside is smoothed over with a little wooden spade-like implement. No polish, glaze, or paint is applied to the pottery, either inside or out; the highest effort at decoration resulting in merely a few incised lines just below the neck, or a rough scalloping around the rim. The pottery is burned in a clear, open wood fire; when completed the ware is known as _ul_. BOAT BUILDING The Indians living in the neighborhood of lakes and rivers possess dories or canoes which vary in size from tiny craft 5 to 6 feet long by 16 to 18 inches beam, capable of holding only a single individual, to large craft 25 feet or more in length, large enough to hold a dozen people. All their canoes are constructed by the simple process of hollowing out large logs, the more durable ones being made from cedar, the lighter ones from wild cotton (_yaxche_). [Illustration: PLATE 5 MAYA WOMAN, 105 YEARS OLD, SPINNING COTTON] [Illustration: PLATE 6 MAYA LOOM _a._ Yamal. _b._ Xunche. _c._ Sikinche. _d._ Toboche. _e._ Cheil. _f._ Mamacche. _g._ Yoch. _h._ Botoch. _i._ New spindle. _k._ Old spindle. _l._ Cotton cloth.] The boats are pointed, bow and stern, and when steel tools are available to their makers the lines are often very graceful. Many of the boats, however, follow to some extent the contours of the logs from which they were made, being exceedingly clumsy and difficult to manage. On the rivers and lakes the only method of propulsion is by means of a broad-bladed cedar paddle about 5 feet long, or, where the water is shallow and the bottom hard, a long pole. Both men and women have acquired considerable dexterity in paddling and can keep it up at a 4-mile-an-hour gait from early morning till late at night, with very short intervals for refreshment. They use their canoes for trading corn, vegetables, lime, and live stock among villages along the river banks, for line fishing, spearing, and netting, and for getting from place to place. On the large lagoons and along the seacoast they sometimes use the pole to support a lug sail. SPINNING AND WEAVING