IROOUOIS USES OF MAIZE 



49 



Mullers and mealing slabs are commonly found on Iroquois vil- 

 lage sites and sometimes may be picked up near log cabin sites on the 

 present reservations. The Iroquois probably did not use the long 

 cylindrical pestles to any great extent, as did the New York Algon- 

 qnins as late as the Revolutionary War. 



Mr Harrington found one of these cylindrical pestles among the 

 descendants of the Shinnecock at Southampton, Long Island, to- 

 gether with a small wooden mortar. The Minisink Historical So- 

 ciety has one which was given an early settler by one of the Minsis 

 before the^Revolutionary War. 



Hulling basket, Vegar'tcata'. 1 The Seneca word for hulling 

 basket means it washes corn. This basket is woven with tight sides 



I 'I 



Fig, 6 Technic of the hulling basket 



and a coarse sievelike bottom. It is about 18 inches deep and as 

 many broad at the top tapering down to 12 inches at the bottom. In 

 this basket is put squaw or hominy corn after it has been boiied it> 

 weak lye to loosen the hulls and outer skin. The basket of corn is 

 then soused up and down in a large tub of water until all the hulls 

 are free and have floated off in the many rinse waters. 



The details of weaving the hulling basket are shown in figure 6 

 and the basket itself in plate 13. Hulling baskets are made in four 

 styles ; without handles of any sort ; with handles made by openings 

 in the body of the basket just below the rim ; by raised loop handles 

 made by fastening pieces of bent wood through the rim and into the 

 body of the basket; and by a raised handle that arches from side 

 to side. For the various styles see figure 7. This type of basket is 



Yegahreda n da'kwa' in Mohawk 



