Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
Cultural Services

Item's Choctaw Name:  Shuti

Item's English Name:  Cooking Pot (Mississippian Plain)

Age:  1830s - 1840s

Material: Clay, mixed with coarse mussel shell.

Dimensions:

Height = 43cm

Interior Rim Diameter: 19cm

Rim Thickness = 13.3mm

Origin: The vessel was archaeologically excavated from a refuse pit at site 34MC399.  This was an 1830s-1840s Choctaw homestead site in McCurtain County, OK.

Current Owner: Museum of the Red River

Location: Idabel, OK

Notes - The is a large, fairly well-made Choctaw cooking pot.  The clay has large pieces of burned mussel shell mixed with it to help protect the pot from repeated heating and cooling.  Vessels like this one, were used much like today's cast iron.  Hominy or stew were placed in the pots, and then it was set on the fire to boil. 

 Marks indicate that this vessel could have been rough-shaped using the coiling technique, and then worked with a paddle on its exterior.  The exterior of the vessel's rim was pinched at regular intervals when the clay was soft, in order to make a design.  The shell temper is as large as 11.6 mm in maximum dimension.