Featured Comanche Pottery

Hi all:

Pretty sure this is a Comanche marbelized gypsum piece from Texas. It's about 7 x 6.5" and 3 lb 10oz.

Does anyone know the approximate year, value, utilitarian purpose, or anything else about it?

Thanks!

 

Does that patent number belong to this piece? If so are the numbers 4320075?

 

This might help, since so much information on line is not accurate:

Despite the name, Comanche Pottery is not Native American, and has no connection with the Comanche tribe. It was a brand name registered to Ron Allen, who was born in Comanche, Texas, and died in 2015. He manufactured wholesale art pottery, and other ceramic products in Comanche, Texas, and in several other locations in the southeastern U.S. (including Oxford, Mississippi; Lumberton, North Carolina; and, possibly, in Orlando, Florida.) The pottery dates to the late 1970s and 1980s.

Unfortunately, "researching" the pottery on line is difficult, since much information is not accurate, and is conflicting. About the only thing that is definite is that there is no tribal affiliation. Comanche Indians do not have a pottery-making tradition. There are no known examples, no documented proof that they ever did make pottery.

The best, most accurate information that I've found, can be seen at: https://pottery.fandom.com/wiki/Comanche_Pottery

 

Pretty sure the patent is 4320078

 

Thanks, Say it . . . Very helpful!

 

(I think you meant Taupou)

Here is a link to the patent 4320078 if you didn't find it already.

Process for making marbleized gypsum pottery

https://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph...50&s1=4320078.PN.&OS=PN/4320078&RS=PN/4320078

 

Yes, thanks to you both.

 

Interesting, that makes sense to me as Comanches were known as "Lords of the Plains" and made their living raiding. Odd to think of them sitting at a pottery wheel.
Any pots needed were simply "lifted" from pot folk! BAM!

 

A minor point: traditional NA pottery was not made on pottery wheels, but rather was hand-shaped from coils or slabs of clay.

Because of that, many pieces are often not perfectly symmetrical, which is a trait that to me at least gives individual pieces such personality.

 

I agree completely, and was going to say something about Native American potters never using a potter's wheel. Then I thought how "odd" it would be to think of seeing a traditional NA potter sitting at a potter's wheel...and wasn't sure how to interpret what was being said. I would definitely be "odd," though.

 

BAM!

 

LOL, well I see most are focusing on a minor point.
The point I was making is that the Lords of the Plains were fierce fighters, the most feared tribe in the Americas and, I found it interesting that they made no pottery!

 

Plains peoples tended to migrate more than stay in one place year-round, so pottery was less common, as it's heavy and relatively fragile.

Pottery in the Americas tended to be associated more with cultures that lived in places where year-round agriculture was possible.

It's a minor point, yes. But like I said, some asymmetrical, hand-shaped pottery has such a feel of the potter. It's so expressive. It has personality. The perfect symmetrical pieces made with a wheel and, even worse, the mass produced green ware can feel mechanical and even dead. On that topic, I could go on and on!

 

how about...you have to live in the right place...with the right mud !!!

 

Yes, I have ZERO interest in pottery, Comanches OTOH is a different matter, which is how I came upon this thread. These guys were like ancient Sparta, the only thing on their mind was WAR! Indeed, the name Comanche means “anyone who wants to fight me all the time.”
They absolutely positively RULED the southern Great Plains & controlled an area of 250,000 sq miles, a huge area that encompassed Texas, Oklahoma & New Mexico.
There is a new book titled "Empire of the Summer Moon" that details their history.

" The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were masterful at war and so skillful that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. So effective were the Comanches that they forced the creation of the Texas Rangers and account for the advent of the new weapon specifically designed to fight them: the six-gun."
Our war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation.
As the most powerful NA tribe in history, you'd think you would hear more about them, that may be changing now.
They are known as "Lords of the Plains" for good reason.

 

And, like me, it appears they had ZERO interest in pottery. BAM!

 

Somebody in here said the magic word, Comanche, and it was like a moth to flame, I was on it like a BAD HABIT!

 

Ya...right......
your tone and gushing admiration come right thru your post....

it sounds like you were just having fun....!!!

Could u read us the 1st chapter.....please !..

 

I just recently learned about them, their military prowess & conquests are unreal, reaching mythical proportions. They took on EVERYBODY, the Spanish, French, American settlers moving west, it didn't matter to them. Ditto other NA tribes, Pawnees, Osages, Arapaho & Apache, they nearly exterminated the Apaches.
Saw an interview a couple of years ago with the guy who wrote probably the 1st definitive history of this tribe, the rest, as they say, is history!