303 
several stones of the desired quality, but his wife will do all the 
shaping by laboriously pecking away with a small boulder of 
harder stone until it is of the prescribed form. The work de- 
voted to a single metate, such as the one in the Botanic Garden 
(Fig. 1), may require weeks of time. 
Usually three stones are required—one, of coarse grain, often 
of hard porous lava, for hulling the corn; another, of finer stone, 
for milling it coarsely, and the third, usually of fine-grained sand- 
stone, for grinding it until it is almost flour-like. These metates 
are set side by side, the end toward the grinder higher than the 
other end, in a kind of low trough built in the floor, with parti- 
tions of wood or stone separating them to keep the ground corn 
within its proper confines. Tihe women kneel on the floor before 
the trough, their feet usually braced against the house wall, and 
each with her mano or grinding slab (which is coarse or fine to 
correspond with the metate) grinds up and down, up and down, 
often from dawn until dark (Figs. 11 and 12). Coronado, the 
explorer, wrote of these Zufi corn-grinders in 1540: ‘“‘ They have 
the very best machinery for grinding that was ever seen. One of 
these Indian women here will grind as much as four of the Mexi- 
cans.” The labor is arduous, but these gentle, happy, patient little 
women have a way of lessening it by crooning a charming little 
grinding song, such as the following one of Zuni recorded by 
Natalie Curtis: 
—" 
Yonder, yonder see the fair rainbow, 
See the rainbow brightly decked and painted! 
Now the swallow bringeth glad news to your corn, 
Singing, “ Hitherward, hitherward, hitherward, rain, 
“ Hither come!” 
Singing, “ Hitherward, hitherward, hitherward, white cloud, 
“ Hither come! 
Oe hear the corn-plants murmur, 
“We are growing everywhere! ” 
Hi, yai! The world, how fair! 
Or the following quaint ditty from Laguna pueblo, New Mexico: 
ee ay 
ow aw to me Hoses. 
Fly, ae. vee 
Fly, yellow-wing, 
