The most complete article that has yet been given concerning the forms and uses of perforated stones is that by H. W. Henshaw.[64]
Discoidal Stones.
There are numerous references to discoidal stones by various writers, but a majority of the objects do not fall under any explanation that has so far been given.
The Choctaw Indians used disks two fingers wide and two spans around in playing “chungke,”[65] and the Indians of North Carolina were much addicted to a sport called “chenco,” played with a staff and a bowl made with stone.[66] The same kind of game was, or still is, played with hoops or rings of wood or rawhide by the Iroquois,[67] the Pawnee,[68] the Apache,[69] the Navajo,[70] the Mohave,[71] and the Omaha;[72] also, with rings of stone, by the Arikara,[73] the Mandan,[74] and other tribes.
The game of chungke, however, will account for only a small part of the great number of stones of this form. The Indians of southern California, in manufacturing pottery, make the clay compact and smooth by holding a rounded and smooth stone against the inside.[75] The Fijians, in making pottery, use a small, round flat stone to shape the inside,[76] while the Indians of Guiana use ancient axes or smooth stones for polishing the clay in making their vessels.[77] According to Evans,[78] pitted disks were used as pestles, hammers, or mullers; a thick one with pitted ends was found in a mortar at Holyhead.[79] Under the head of pestles and of perforated stones further references will be found that may apply as well to this form of implements.
No kind of relic is more difficult to classify. From the smooth, symmetrical, highly-polished chungke stone they gradually merge into mullers, pestles, pitted stones, polishers, hammers,[80] ornaments, and the ordinary sinker or club-head, so that no dividing line is possible. Theories constructed on a basis of their use may be far from correct.
They present various forms and degrees of finish; many have the natural surface on both sides with the edge worked off by grinding or pecking, the latter being produced probably by use as a hammer; the sides may be ground down while the edge remains untouched; or the sides may be pecked and the edge ground, being probably of a thick pebble originally. Some of the finer grades, as chalcedony and quartz, that have received the highest finish, appear to have had all the work done by grinding or rubbing, as even those only slightly worked bear no signs of hammering or pecking. When of the harder materials they are generally made of water-worn pebbles as nearly the desired form as can be found; in fact, some specimens which are in their natural state, entirely unworked, require a very close examination to distinguish them from others whose whole surface has been artificially produced. In the jasper conglomerates from Arkansas, however, there is a regular series from a roughly chipped disk to one of the highest polish and symmetry. The larger ones of quartz, particularly those with concavities in the sides, must have been patiently wrought for years before brought to their present state. Many of the smaller ones, especially sandstone, seem to have been designed for grinding or polishing.
Fig. 95.—Discoidal stone.
The following groups are represented in the collection: