Container

This type of glazed clay pot was common in the South American mainland. Women stored water in them or used them as drinking cups for water, juice or cassava beer.

The pots were made by the women with clay that the men brought from the banks of the great Essequibo River. This is one of the major rivers that, together with the Orinoco and the Rio Negro, connected the Caribbean islands such as Trinidad to the Amazonian interior.

Amerindian women decorated their pots with simple and abstract patterns. Men’s patterns represented the plants and animals they came across in the forests that related to their mythology. They made the glaze with plant resin and would not use them for cooking because it would have destroyed the shiny resin. Cooking pots were less decorative.

This container would have been made by women and decorated with the anaconda pattern by men. Archaeologists have been able to trace the evolution of styles and structures in the Caribbean and the South American mainland by studying this type of pot.