MATEEIAL CULTURE OF THE INDIANS OF SAMANA 69 



deposits, as in the San Gabriel cave, it must be inferred that the 

 type of polished stone under discussion probably had other uses, 

 possibly amuletic, or as a zemi. The stone is smooth as to surface, 

 almost leaf-shaped in outline, with well-rounded base and tapered 

 ends and lateral edges. Dimensions: 6.5 centimeters (2.5 inches) 

 long and 3.5 centimeters (1.4 inches) wide. 



Sandstone abrading tools were picked up from the several sites 

 explored, but the larger number came from the San Juan site on the 

 peninsula. Surfaces show no working but much abrasion through 

 use. A many-faceted sandstone polisher was found near the bottom 

 of the deposits in the " Eailroad " cave. This stone has previously 

 been referred to as a celt polisher, but could scarcely have had such 

 use at a site where celts had not been used. The object was shaped 

 in symmetrical design, having two facet planes tapering toward the 

 two flattened ends. The artifact is now in the National Museum of 

 the Dominican Republic. 



Pestles. — No decorated stone pestles were recovered at any of the 

 sites visited, either on the north shore of the bay or at the caves 

 of the Playa Honda coast. Three stone pestles or grinding stones, 

 plain in outline and undecorated as to surface, but carefully worked 

 and symmetrically shaped as to form three distinct types, are illus- 

 trated in Plate 5 as 6, 7, and 8. The Museum expedition was suc- 

 cessful in recovering the bulbous working end of an earthenware 

 pestle; also, a perfect specimen of a small pestle of carved shell 

 (pL 9, No. 5). 



Stone pestles are found throughout the West Indies. Those of 

 the Lesser Antilles are mostly plain undecorated conical forms like 

 those recovered from Samana, while those from the Greater Antilles 

 are ornamented with an anthropomorphic or bird figurine carving 

 at the head. No 6 of Plate 5 is somewhat irregular as to form, but 

 resembles a segment of a truncated cone. Both head and lens show 

 evidence of hard use, the head probably as a hammerstone. It is 

 smoke-blackened and has been shaped from an igneous rock. A 

 smaller pestle was picked up at the entrance of a small cave 5 kilo- 

 meters east of Samana on the north shore of the Bay. This small 

 pestle (No. 7, pi. 5) is also conical in outline, but is more truncated, 

 being oval in section and triangular in profile. It appears fore- 

 shortened in the illustration, the view being from the top looking 

 down on the rounded head. The stone pestle illustrated as 6 is 13.4 

 centimeters (5,3 inches) long and 7.5 centimeters (2.9 inches) in 

 diameter, while pestle 7 is of a similar diameter but shorter, namely, 

 7.4 centimeters (2.9 inches) in length. In outline this stone pestle is 

 roughly oval, being straight-sided one-half the distance from the 

 bottom, but tapered from the center to the rounded head. (Cat. 



