In Pots we Trust

Abstract

Previous studies have illustrated the symbolic prominence of pottery making in sub-Saharan Africa. In many parts of the continent, the craft is explicitly connected to a series of other production activities and parts of the technical process often serve as a metaphor for explaining aspects of the human experience and to structure certain rituals. Barley goes as far as to speak of a ‘potting model’, one of many ways available to a culture to think about itself. It remains to be known, however, why African people specifically chose pottery making as a way to act upon/explain the world and why the activity is connected to specific realms of the human experience throughout the continent. Also, one may wonder whether potters’ behaviour could in turn be influenced by metaphors, with steps of the chaîne opératoire becoming the locus of a symbolic discourse. In an effort to answer these questions, I attempted a systematic comparison of prohibitions and rituals connected to pottery in 102 sub-Saharan societies.