Earthen Canteen

An earthen canteen made in the Acoma Pueblo fashion. Acoma Pueblo pottery is typically painted in black, white, and terra cotta orange. Acoma pottery is characterized by thin but durable walls, geometric patterns and fine line work. Historically, the pottery was made from local deposits of dense clay shaped via hand coiling, and typically served practical storage and serving purposes. Acoma is one of the oldest continually inhabited communities in the United States and its pottery dates back over 1,000 years.

This object was collected from the Acoma Reservation, Cibola County, New Mexico, United States, North America in 1884 by the the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology, an entity established by congress in 1879 to oversee the transfer of extensive government records, archives, and other materials dealing with American Indians to the Smithsonian Insitution. It's founding director was the well-known explorer, geologist, anthropologist, and conservationist John Wesley Powell. Many of America's earliest field anthropologists were employed by the Bureau of Ethnology, several of whom conducted important research and collecting of North America's indigenous cultures, languages, and archaeological sites. The Bureau would eventually go on to become part of the museum's anthropology department.