Fig. 518. (S. 1–3.) Stone bowl from the collection of H. S. Hurlbutt, Libertyville, Illinois.
Fig. 517 is a long, beautifully polished, roller pestle, about twenty-six inches in length and owned by Mr. S. R. Turner, Riverside, Rhode Island, and Fig. 513 is a roller pestle with an effigy head carved at one end. It is impossible to determine what this effigy represents. This is from the Salem collection, was found near Ipswich, and is about thirty inches in length.
Doubtless there are not a few objects classed as mortars which were food receptacles. I have included several in this chapter. The conditions under which some of these more highly finished bowls are found leads us to admit ignorance of their true meaning.
Fig. 518 is a delicate stone bowl from Illinois; Fig. 519 is a limestone bowl, shown one third size. This was found in the oblong mound of the Hopewell Group in 1901, by our survey. Neither of these specimens is to be classed as a mortar. Both are highly finished, and the limestone bowl is an unusual specimen, nothing just like it having been found in America. We cannot imagine that these were made use of to contain ordinary food.
Fig. 519. (S. about 1–3.) Stone bowl of twelve or thirteen pounds weight. Cut from solid limestone. It is somewhat like the type of bowls found on the Pacific Coast, and nothing comparable to it has been discovered in our Ohio Valley mounds.
Mr. C. E. Brown writes of his region:—
“A small number of stone pestles have been found in Wisconsin, and a few hollowed-out stones which appear to have been employed as mortars. The Wisconsin savages employed wooden mortars for crushing their corn and wild rice. These were hollows cut into the side of logs or made of sections of logs hollowed out. Wooden pestles were employed with these. At Lake Winnebago and elsewhere in the Fox River Valley are large boulders upon the tops of which are shallow depressions in which the Indians of recent times are known to have ground corn.”
