114 Annals of the South African Mitseum. 



But they have been also used as hammers, and after all, what is 

 a club but an appropriate hammer ? Certainly the evolution of the 

 one into the other would prove a simple affair. The large number 

 of these bored stones found in halves, with a clean fracture, is 

 a clear proof that they have not been used as war clubs only, but also 

 that, perhaps, in more domestic pursuits they had been utilised 

 as hammers. Moreover, I found on three occasions broken pieces 

 of ! kwes near smithies, and together with large pounders with 

 abraded ends, pieces of iron ore, &c. (See Chapter XX.) There 

 doubt is impossible ; both the hafted ! kwe and the hand-held stone 

 were used together and for the same purpose. The two examples 

 from the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, figured by Mr. C. G. Seligman 

 (Journ. E. Anthr. Inst. xl. 1910, pi. xxv.) are also broken in two. 

 They show, nevertheless, the same mode of perforation. 



Another supposition that these more or less hemispherical stones 

 were used as querns, the stick being held in each hand and the 

 stone made to rotate on its axis, would seem a very plausible one, 

 but, there again, I cannot say that, in spite of my primary leaning 

 to this conclusion, I can reconcile it with facts. I have probably 

 seen and examined more than 800 of these perforated stones, but 

 none has shown in the periphery traces of the wear that such a 

 use would entail. Moreover, only the regularly spherical ! kwes 

 could have proved effectual for this purpose, and a look at 

 Pis. XX. and XXI. shows that only a few of the implements effect 

 a regular shape. But if the centre of the periphery bears no trace of 

 the depression \yhich grinding or milling would of necessity produce, 

 some spherical ! kwes are distinctly flattened at the holes ; others, like 

 Nos. 7 and 10 of Fig. 161 in PL XXL, or No. 3 of Fig. 156 in 

 PI. XX., have been used as braders or mullers or both, as either 

 one or both sides, but not the poles, clearly show ; and to that 

 purpose many flat or depressed examples such as those in Fig. 152 

 (PI. XX.) bear testimony. 



It is difficult to conceive that apart from their use as club-heads, 

 or make-weights for digging-sticks the perforation could have been 

 of any other advantage to the owner or maker. Certainly a short 

 handle inserted at one of the poles and kept in position by the 

 conical hole would facilitate the handling of the ! kwe as a milling 

 stone, but this assumption is disproved by the total absence in 

 querns or mortars of depressions corresponding to those which in 

 the process of milling or grinding would be produced by these 

 perforated stones, either spherical or flat. We have, it is true, make- 

 weights in which the two poles show most unmistakably that they 



