The Stone Ages of South Africa. 119 



chosen. They are more polished than the ! kwe, but then this 

 polish is produced or added to by the use of the hand. The plane 

 or rubbing face is seldom at right angle with the axis (see Figs. 168 

 and 170), and this is due, in all likelihood, to the partly unsym- 

 metrical groove of the mortar. These mullers are seldom worn 

 smooth otherwise than at one end. No. 2 of Fig. 170 is, however, 

 an exception, being pentagonal. Nor have they all a smooth face. 

 Many have both ends abraded as if they had been held in the hand 

 as hammers, and many mortars are broken in a way that suggests 

 that they served as anvils ; and, as in the case of the ! kwe, no two 

 mullers or pounders are alike. They vary also greatly in size, but 

 we must be careful to discern between mullers showing distinct 

 traces of the purpose to which they have been put, and stones, 

 some of very large size, which bear no such marks. In PI. XXII. 

 are two such artefacts figured. They were both found buried at 

 some depth. Fig. 166 was discovered while making a railway line 

 near Cape Town ; the other is from the southern part of the Kala- 

 hari. They are both unadorned; but Fig. 173 of PI. XXIII. is 

 ornamented. Its history is unknown. I found it in the Collection 

 without any record, but I suspect that it comes from Mossel Bay. 

 I know of others, but smaller. 



These cylindrical artefacts — that they are artefacts does not 

 admit of a doubt — are not absolutely symmetrical, and the purpose 

 of Figs. 166 and 173 remained conjectural until we received the 

 specimen represented by Fig. 167. It was presented to the 

 Museum as being a Bushman's anvil, but from further inquiries 

 it transpired that the stone was used as a beacon by the Hottentot, 

 or perhaps the Bushman tribes, to denote the limits of their grazing 

 or hunting grounds. If a dispute arose between two tribes or clans, 

 the chief would direct a search to be made for the beacon, which, 

 when dug up at the spot mentioned, would establish the claim of 

 the tribe. 



There is no corroborative evidence that the three implements 

 figured were used as beacons. I have heard of another found at 

 Klein Brak Eiver (Mossel Bay) ; and in the Eecords of the Albany 

 Museum a fifth has been figured which is 49 cm. in length. In 

 the same Records Dr. Schonland has reproduced a diorite (?) muller 

 21 cm. in length and pointed at one end, which closely resembles 

 some in our possession, and which might come also within the 

 category of symbolic tools. We have, moreover, smaller cylin- 

 drical ones from Knysna, etc., one of which has the ends somewhat 

 abraded. 



