304 
Now fly away to the blossoms, 
Now a ee i oe blossoms, 
Butterflies, 
See enti 
Now fly away to vies Blossene 
Butterflies, ane ! 
If a woman should chance to have much grinding for her house- 
hold, which usually is the case, and her immediate female relations 
are not available, she will call on her neighbors to aid in the task; 
and they in turn will invite her to their grinding bee whenever 
they are hard-pressed. 
In all probability there has been little change in the method of 
grinding by the Zufi women for a thousand years or longer. 
Recording observations which he made on the spot, Castaneda, the 
principal chronicler of Coronado’s expedition of 1540, wrote as 
follows, his quaint description being quite applicable to the custom 
today, except for the flute-playing swain, although the men do 
have corn-grinding songs which they sometimes sing to the girls 
while engaged in milling: 
They keep the separate houses yee ee prepare the food for eating and 
where they grind the meal, very c his is a separate room or closet, 
where they have a cre with oe stones fixed in stiff clay. Three women 
go in here, each one having a stone, with which one of them breaks the 
corn, the ne Say it, and the third grinds it again. They take off their 
shoes, do up their hair, shake their Bie and cover ae heads before 
they enter the door. A man sits at the door playing on a fife while they 
grind, moving the stones to the music and singing together. They grind a 
large quantity at one time, because they make all their bread of meal soaked 
in warm water, like wafers. They gather a great quantity of brushwood 
and dry it to use for cooking all through the year. 
The metate seems to have originated in the land where corn 
was first developed—the home of the Mayas, whose marvelous 
sculptures and ruined temples are quite comparable with those of 
ancient Egypt. One therefore would expect to find elaborately 
carved metates in Central America; and such indeed is the case, 
for archeological research has resulted in unearthing many an- 
cient metates that are beautifully carved (Fig. 14). In Mexico 
and Central America legs are a characteristic feature of the mill- 
