54 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Another mjethod of bruising green corn on the cob was to place a 

 fiat grinding stone in a large wooden or bark bowl, hold the ear on 

 the stone with one hand and mash the unripe kernels with a milling 

 stone held in the other hand. The bruised corn was then brushed 

 from the mortar stone and the kernels that yet 'adhered to the cob, 

 scraped off. When enough material had been thus prepared the lower 

 stone was removed from the bowl and the mashed corn removed 

 for cooking. 



Dried corn was milled much in the same way. A handful of the 

 corn was placed on the millstone and pulverized with the miller. The 

 cracked corn would fall into the bowl and be pounded again and 

 again until enough hominy or meal was obtained. The Seneca aban- 

 doned this method about 50 years ago, although a few have used it 

 in recent times when a wooden mortar was not accessible. 



The writer collected a deer jaw scraper in 1903 for the American 

 Museum of Natural History and believes his description and speci- 

 men the first on record. Mr Harrington later collected and described 

 the deer jaw scraper in Canada, corroborating the writer's data.' 1 



Sagard in his Voyages to the Pfurons describes another jaw method 

 of removing green corn from the cob but says the jaws were those 

 of the old women, the maidens and children who prepared the mass. 

 He remarks that he had no liking for the food. 



Eating bowl, Ga'on'wa'. Eating bowls 2 were made from bark 

 or wood and were of various shapes. 



Feast bowls oftentimes were of large size and were ornamented 

 in various ways to distinguish them from ordinary dishes. There 

 are two interesting specimens of feast bowls in the State collec- 

 tions. Both are Mohawk bowls from Grand River, Can. One has a 

 handle styled after a beaver tail, a beaver's tail being the symbol of 

 a feast. The other bowl is made of elm bark. It was used at one 

 of the Five Nation's councils some 10 years ago. The interior is 

 divided into five sections by painted lines of yellow radiating from 

 the center. At the angles of the radiating division lines are beaver 

 tails, five in all. Upon the inner raised sides of the bowl is painted 

 in red the names of the five nations and in black beneath the modern 

 council names : Ga-ne-a-ga-o-no, Mohawk, Owner of the Flint ; Gue- 

 gweh-o-no, Onondaga, On the Hill; Nun-da-wah-o-no, Seneca, The 



* See also Parker, A. C. N. Y. State Mus. Bui. 117, p. 544. 

 2 " Their dishes are wooden platters of sweet timber." Raleigh, in Hak- 

 luyt's Voyages. Lond. 1600. 3:304. 



