THE POTTERS OF BUUR HEYBE, SOMALIA

This award-winning ethnographic film documents pottery production and use at Buur Heybe - The Hill of the Potter's Sand - in southern Somalia.

The Potters of Buur Heybe portrays the complete life cycle of earthenware pottery manufacture and use. It places the pottery in its social and economic context, and considers the roles of gender, symbolism, agency and religion in the process. Although oral tradition credits women for discovering the highly valued local clay, only the men create the beautifully decorated drinking, cooking and storage vessels. Women quarry and transport the clay to the village, where men make vessels using the coil method on a foot-turned wooden wheel. The pots are pounded, decorated and dried before being open-air wood fired on the ground. They are sold locally and regionally to farmers and townspeople.