Chapter One
INTRODUCTION
Background
There is a story that people first discovered pottery by accident. A basket used for carrying grain, smeared on
the inside with mud from a nearby river bank, accidentally rolled into the fire. The basket burned away leaving
a brittle shell. The people discovered that this shell did not dissolve in water and in fact could hold water, was
heat resistant and so could be used for cooking food.
Figure 1.1 How pottery was discovered
If this story is true, the mud from the nearby river bank must have been clay. Clay is a substance formed by
the weathering of rocks such as granite. The tiny particles of rock wear off and are washed down to collect in
natural clay deposits.
Firing is the process of baking sun-dried clay which transforms the clay into pottery. During firing, the clay
becomes a brittle substance which is no longer soluble in water. Fired clay pots will hold water, are heat
resistant and so can be used to cook food. Most earthenware clays change colour during firing.
In Kenya, many traditional potters still fire their pots in an open bonfire, or a bonfire in a traditional pit. This
method of firing is advantageous because it is cheap and is fairly simple to operate. The disadvantages are
that it does not work well in wet or damp conditions. The bonfire burns and cools very fast. This sometimes
causes the pottery to crack. In windy conditions, the firing can be uneven and so some pots do not get fired,
thus using a lot of fuelwood and dried grass.
Figure 1.2 A traditional bonfire
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