Wyandot Pottery

Ancient Wendat/Wyandot pottery was more about the shapes than the decorations: heavy collars, multiple shoulders, scalloped and notched rims, and rounded bases were common. These were characteristics of most Great Lakes-area ceramics from the Late Woodland through the Historic Period. However, those original vessels were for utilitarian purposes: everyday cooking, feeding and storage. Similar to most other Native American people who made pottery, the Wyandot people also made ceremonial pottery.

Their primary method of building a pot, though, was paddle and anvil, not coil. Sometimes their paddles were carved with geometric designs and that would be the only decoration on a pot: the whole exterior of the piece stamped with the paddle's carved surface. That required a relatively thick body and made for a heavy pot, too.

For a couple hundred years they were forced into being nomads and almost lost whatever pottery tradition they had from before. Coil-built Wyandot pottery is a relatively recent phenomenon.