Fig. 500. (S. 1–1.)
Frog pipe, from Tennessee, and rectangular pipe, from Georgia. Both of fine sandstone. From the collection of F. P. Graves, Doe Run, Saint Francois County, Missouri.
CHAPTER XXVII
GROUND STONE
MORTARS AND PESTLES
Classification of mortars and pestles.
Mortars. (a) Oval or circular. (Figs. 501–02.) (b) Angular or squared (metates). (Figs. 415–16.) (c) Pointed. (Fig. 511, top row.) Pestles. (a) Elongated, plain. (Fig. 517.) (b) Elongated, ridged or ornamented. (Figs. 513–14.) (c) Bell-shaped. (Fig. 503.) (d) With flat surfaces (mano-stones). (Fig. 515.)
There grew in North America, at the time of its discovery by Columbus, a profusion of seeds, nuts, and roots of various kinds, developing according to climate from northern Canada to southern Arizona. Man found these a valuable addition to his food-supply, and he made use of many of them that we of to-day should consider unpalatable. He procured shell-fish of various kinds both salt and fresh water; he knew the properties of many roots, bulbs, barks, and other plants. With the exception of such molluscs as he ate, and his fresh meat, the greater bulk of his food-supply was in the form of kernels, or grains, or bulbs, or nuts, which must needs be reduced to meal, or stripped of husks, or cracked and broken. To convert the raw food into palatable flour, he used both wooden and stone pestles in flat, oval, or round mortars, the form varying in different parts of the country.
In 1895, the American Antiquarian Society published “The Food of Certain American Indians and Their Method of Preparing It,” by Professor Lucien Carr. Mr. Carr was long Assistant Curator of the Peabody Museum at Cambridge, and his research into historic Indian affairs is well known. I quote a few paragraphs from Mr. Carr:—
Fig. 501. (S. 1–8.) From the collection of Solon McCoy, Mountain Home, Idaho.