Manioc Beer Pottery Vessel

Story

What you are looking at is a pottery vessel from the Caribbean. It has a very elaborate design for this time period. Often we distinguish between pottery that we believe was used for domestic purposes, which tends not to be very highly decorated, and those that were used for ceremonial purposes, in which case you want to put your best side forward. In some ways it’s like having a party at your house where you either bring out the plain Corelle ware or grandma’s good china.

This vessel is interesting because of the black resin that was coated on the interior. The black resin was often used to protect the interior of the pottery vessel from a liquid that was highly acidic and we know that in some cases — we don’t know this one specifically — but we believe that this resin was used with manioc beer.

Manioc beer is a very interesting development in the Caribbean — actually it started in South America — in which what you may know as cassava or manioc is first boiled to make it soft and then the women would actually chew the cassava for a bit, spit it into a large container and allow it to ferment. This beer is mildly intoxicating, although some societies drink quarts and quarts of it a day, preferring it to water. The resin helps protect the pottery from deteriorating with this highly acidic liquid inside of it.

So the vessel is important for us because it gives us some indication of the kind of ceremonies that were being performed, it gives us an idea of the kind of plants that were being grown and also gives a little bit of an insight into the types of ceremonial activities that were probably practiced.

Bill Keegan 
Curator, Caribbean Archaeology
Florida Museum of Natural History