Large Tarahumara SW American Indian Mexican Ceramic Beer Fermenter 16" Wide

This is a very large, hand-made Tarahumara beer fermenting pot, measuring 16" in diameter and 12" high. It weighs around 9 pounds. There are no chips, breaks, or cracks, and it has a wonderful ring when tapped. The earthenware walls are thick, and the lower half is unrefined, with finger smears and dents all over the surface. The upper half is crudely burnished enough to smooth the surface, but not enough to make it shiny. The edges of the pot's "flying saucer" shape are uneven, with one side resting lower than the other. The upper rim, too, is uneven, and is somewhat tipped to one side. All of these peculiarities make this pot unique. The rawhide wrapping, likely deer or goat skin, features a collar around the upper rim and a pad that covers the narrow, flattened base, with strips of rawhide lacing them together. The pot has fire clouds (blackened areas) that resulted from it being fired with wood or dried animal dung. It lacks patina (surface polish from being handled and used), so its age is not clear. It does not appear to have ever been used, and has likely been kept as part of a collection in the US. The Tarahumara live in far-northern Mexico, in a rugged mountainous area that has allowed them to guard their ancient way of life. As a semi-autonomous people group, they are more culturally aligned with tribes in the Southwestern US than with Mexican Mestizo culture, thus their pottery can be rightly classified as both "Mexican" and "American Southwest".