Canteen

About Canteens

Round water jars with handles for a carrying strap were common before the Spanish arrived in the New World. The flat-backed canteen shape (with handles and sometimes a carrying strap) was an innovation that arrived with the Spanish. The form was widely adopted among many of the pueblos and was a staple of trade between the pueblos and the early Spanish colonists. The form was in common use until the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

After that Revolt, there was a movement among all the pueblos to go back to their ancestral ways. The flat-backed pottery canteen almost disappeared. The form was revived again in the late 1800s at the suggestion of railroad traders looking for more items to stock in their gift shops.

As much as we modern folk think a canteen is all about carrying our drinking water with us when we travel, Native American pottery canteens will slowly be destroyed by the introduction of water to their innards...

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