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the teeth in place, but in other parts the work was done quite effi- 
ciently with a corncob. Sometimes an upright wooden mortar 
made from part of a tree trunk and having a heavy rod bottom 
was used with a wooden pestle, the grains falling through the 
rods to the ground, while the cobs were held. Then the corn was 
crushed with a wooden or stone pestle in a similar mortar with a 
solid base, instead of with a metate and mano, the end of the 
pestle sometimes being fastened with a thong to a resilient tree 
branch to facilitate pounding. It was by this means that the 
hominy of the Eastern Indians was made. Corn was stored in 
various ways—in a pit beneath the floor, in a cubby-hole in a 
cave, or in corn-cribs such as those common in our Southern 
States, the form of which was borrowed directly from the Indians. 
As we have already seen, the Pueblo Indians store their corn in 
a regular store-room, which sometimes does service also for hid- 
ing away various family oddments (Fig. 3). 
We should like to say something of the many ways in which 
corn is prepared for food, but this would take us too far afield— 
away from the main topic of this little Guide, which is designed to 
present an idea of the important part that corn and the metate 
have played in Indian history and industry. 
Note: In June, 1928, Miss Alice A. Driggs offered to present 
to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden a bird bath in memory of her 
mother. During that summer, while the director of the Garden 
was collecting on the Arizona desert, near Roosevelt Lake, his at- 
tention was called to a large prehistoric Pueblo metate, or flour 
mill, about 30 inches long by 22 inches wide and 15 inches high. 
At once it occurred to him that this would make a unique bird bath, 
of special interest for a botanic garden. The metate, together with 
the grinding stone, or mano, were purchased and shipped to 
Brooklyn. In May, 1929, the metate, with the mano securely 
fastened to it, was installed at the northern end of the Rose Gar- 
den, on a mounting designed by Harold A. Caparn, consulting 
landscape architect of the Garden. The mounting bears the fol- 
lowing inscription: 
THIS ANCIENT PUEBLO METATE FROM ARIZONA WAS PRESENTED FOR A 
BIRD BATH TO BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN BY ALICE A. DRIGGS, IQ2Q. 
