460 



FEWKES: A PREHISTORIC STONE MORTAR 



remarkable feature is a rattlesnake sculptured in high relief on 

 the margin (fig. 1). 



The body of this animal almost completely surrounds the 

 mortar, the anterior end of the body being coiled, and the tail 

 ending in four rattles and a button. The head projects from 

 the coiled part of the body and is flat above, indented with 

 three pits, two of which were intended for eyes. The body is 

 covered with a cross hatching of incised lines representing scales, 

 and the mouth is a horizontal slit. From the top of the nose 

 to the opposite rim the diameter measures 4| inches and the 

 depth of the cavity three-fourths of an inch. 



Fig. 1. Snake mortar. Diameter \\ inches. 



The above specimen is now in the Museum of the American 

 Indian, Heye Foundation, New York City. 



Mortars made of stone carved in animal forms are not rare in 

 the Gila Valley, although outside of this area they are, so far as 

 known, rarely found in numbers. There are many known ex- 

 amples of mortars of round, oblong shapes, sometimes with pro- 

 longations on the larger axes, representing conventionalized 

 organs, but in others the intended form is so realistic that the 

 animal can be roughly identified. 



One of the best of these was found in Compound B of the Casa 

 Grande group and figured as an idol in my report 2 on that ruin. 



- Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Bureau 0"; American Ethnology, plate 

 47. 



