Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
Cultural Services

Clay pottery has been made and developed by the Indigenous communities of the Southeastern United States for approximately the last 5,000 years. A central a part of the Choctaw traditional lifeway, our ancestors laughed over pottery, cried over pottery, and tripped over pottery nearly every day of their lives.  Clay pots were not only used for cooking and eating, but also for storage, making glue, preparing medicines, processing fibers for cloth textiles, creating dyes, as items of gift and trade, as offerings, as protective coverings, incense-holders, musical instruments, and even to transport the fire to light flaming arrows.

The Choctaw ceramic vessels pictured on the following pages are all from Oklahoma.  Some of them arrived here on the Trail of Tears.  They represent two main types, "shoti" cooking pots, and "ampo" eating bowls.  The cooking pots were often left plain, while the eating bowls were often polished and incised with designs.  One particular style of Choctaw design (called Chickachae Combed by archaeologists) was created by scraping a section of a broken comb across the soft clay, creating a series of fine parallel lines.

Today, Choctaw Nation is revitalizing  the ancient art of Choctaw traditional pottery (see Pottery Class).