208 PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



bavc bad iiuicli to do witli the mauueriu which houses, boats, otc.,bave 

 been made. Ou the southward slopes of those hills habitations jire built 

 to catch the more direct rays of the sun aud to shield the inhabitants 

 from the merciless north winds (Fig. 1). With the art of the house-builder 

 two implements in the Eay collection are intimately connected, the 

 stone hammers (Figs. 2, 3, 4) and the elk-horn wedge (Plate X, Fig. 79). 



The hammers are of dark, heavy schist or basalt, bell-shaped, and fre- 

 quently with greatly expanded tops or pommels. While the specimens 

 agree in general outline, there is not the same conventionalism and hn- 

 ish that are found farther north. 



These hammers are still nsed by the old men among the Hupas, but 

 none of them are able to make one. Those now in possession are much 

 battered, have been handed down for generations, and are highly ven- 

 erated. 



The wedges are made of the antler of the wapiti or American elk 

 {Cervus canadensis, Estlebeu), and are extremely hard.- A close in- 

 spection of any collection of so-called bone imi)lements will reveal a 

 large ]iercentage made of this substance. These antler wedges are used 

 by canoe and house builders to split the redwood logs. By means of 

 stone axes and fire a tall straight redwood was felled or one already 

 IViHen cut the i)roper length. By means of a row of antler or wooden 

 wedges and the stone hammer just described, deftly administered, slabs 

 and puncheons of reqnire.d size were removed, and when necessary 

 adzed down to a tolerable evenness. 



Especial care should be taken to distinguish these bell-shaped ham- 

 mers from pestles (Fig. 52d). The latter are designed to mash, tritu- 

 rate, or macerate something in a mortar of wood or stone. Coming in 

 contact with the mortar chiefly at the edge of its base, the pestle must 

 necessarily have a rounded bottom, and it may be safely asserted that 

 no savage ever flattened or hollowed the bottom of an implement and 

 carefully squared its l>ase for the purpose of knocking the rim ofl' the 

 next moment. 



The mallet or stone hammer is designed to strike a wedge or handle 

 of wood, bone, antler, etc. Coming in contact with these softer sub- 

 stances in the middle of its base, that part of the mallet is usually 

 flattened or convex. The edge may be fractured, but it is seldom worn 

 away. 



Uouses of the Yurok and Karok were sometimes constructed ou level 

 earth, but generally they excavated a round cellar 4 or 5 feet deep and 

 12 to 15 in diameter (Fig. 1). Over this they built a square cabin of 

 split poles or puncheons, planted erect in the ground aud covered with 

 a flatfish puncheon roof. They ate and slept in the cellar (it being only 

 a pit, not covered, except by the roof), squatting in a circle around the 

 fire, aud stored their supplies on the bank above next to the walls of 

 the cabin. For a door they took a punclieon about 4 feet wide, set it up 

 at one corner of the cabin, aud with infinite scrainugs of flints and elk- 



