Alamance County Culture Class: Gourd Making

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Location TBD: Saturday, January 19, 2019 at 1:15 PM – 3:15 PM

Stay tuned for a location for the class.

Learn how to prepare and wash and carve gourds and then make your own designs. The shells of gourds were employed by the Indians for storage and carrying, as water jugs, dippers, spoons, and dishes, and for mixing bowls, pottery smoothers, rattles, sounders for the rasping stick, roof-drains, masks, parts of ornaments, and other purposes, and the flowers were used as food, coloring material, and in ceremonies. 

A number of species and varieties were commonly raised, producing fruit of different shapes and sizes globose, lenticular, pyriform, and tubular, with necks of varying length and curve, or without necks, but all of value for the general or special purpose for which they were selectively grown. Gourds were sometimes shaped by pressure or bandaging while growing. Wild species were eaten green, or were used as medicine, but these were rarely made into utensils, while the larger and varied gourds, which were early distributed, like corn, from regions to the S. or derived during the historic period from the Old World, adapted themselves more fully to Indian needs.