A woman stacks clay grinding bowls on top of wood in preparation for a bonfire firing. The bowls are placed to ensure even exposure to the heat of the bonfire. She will place additional fuel on top of the bowls before lighting the fire. Adadiem, 1994.
In order to transport clay pots by motor vehicle, they must be carefully packed and padded. Here, blackened clay grinding bowls packed in grass have arrived in Techiman market from potting villages in Banda. Techiman, 1994.
These partially formed clay jars (chͻ in Nafaanra) are drying, resting on the palette (kpankpa in Nafaanra) on which they were formed. Once dried to a leather-hard state, the potter removes them from the plate and, using fresh moist clay, adds a rounded base to the jar. To the left, a metal cooking vessel rests nearby. Bondakile, October, 1982.
The remains of a pottery-firing bonfire after the newly fired pots have been removed. Most of the jars visible here were fired prior to this bonfire. Broken or otherwise flawed, they were used to create a bank around the bonfire at its base. The bonfire's fuel has been reduced to an ash layer that remains in the center. Bondakile, October, 1982.
A woman inspects a clay jar for sale in the Bondoukou market. Large and small cooking pots (sro chͻ in Nafaanra) and a bowl are displayed for sale. During the 20th century women from Banda potting villages and surrounding areas headloaded their pottery to sell at Bondoukou's weekly market. Bondoukou, Côte d’Ivoire, 1994.
Women headloading pottery prepare to leave Dorbour to walk to the weekly market in Bondoukou, a distance of more than 30 km. They have secured the clay pots by tying nettting or cloth around them. The women are not necessarily potters. Some women trade in clay pots but do not make them. Dorbour, 1994.
A toddler girl wearing a protective strand of beads sits beside finished clay grinding bowls that have been set aside to continue drying before firing. The scoring on the interior of the bowl provides a rough surface against which cooked vegetables can be ground into a paste before being added to a soup. These bowls may also serve as men's eating bowls (pԑԑ in Nafaanra). Bondakile, October, 1982.
A potter tends the bonfire in which clay pottery jars are being fired. She uses a long pole to adjust the grass fuel laid on top of the pots and the wood fuel beneath them. A bank of previously fired and broken pots holds the fire in place. The bonfire burns rapidly, the firing process lasting between about 30 minutes to an hour. Bondakile, October, 1982.
Peni Krah, a Nafana potter, sits on the ground and uses her left hand to turn the palette (kpankpa in Nafaanra) on which she has molded a clay soup pot (chiin sinyjͻlͻ in Nafaanra), smoothing its rim with a moist cloth held in her right hand. The headpan to her right contains moist clay. Dorbour, 1994.
Side view of a broken pottery sherd with a large slag inclusion. The use of crushed slag as a tempering material included in potting clay is first seen in pottery associated with Ngre phase sites in the Banda area. The use of crushed slag as a temper intensifies during Kuulo phase times, after which it becomes uncommon. Ngre Kataa, June, 2008.
