340 ;WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



primitive man, or rather primitive woman, could be con- 

 sidered as fairly equipped. Furniture and culinary uten- 

 sils were required, and these, too, were provided by the 

 deft and cunning fingers of woman. She was the first pot- 

 ter and the first basketmaker; and anyone who has lived 

 among the savages of any land, especially among the 

 aborigines in the interior of South America, knows what 

 an important part is played in domestic economy by native 

 basketry and ceramic ware. Both of these articles were at 

 first of the simplest character, but woman 's innate esthetic 

 sense soon enabled her to produce those highly ornate speci- 

 mens of pottery and basketry that are so highly prized in 

 the public and private collections of this country and 

 Europe. 



The first device for converting grain into flour was, like 

 the many other articles already named, the invention of 

 woman. Whether the simple mortar and pestle of the 

 North American Indian, or the Mexican metate and muller, 

 or the Irish quern, it was, in every case, the product of 

 woman's brain and handiwork, as it was also the basal 

 prototype of our most improved types of flouring mills. 

 And so was the soapstone pot the predecessor of the iron 

 or brass kettle a woman's invention, as well as many 

 similar contrivances for preparing food. 



But what is probably the most remarkable culinary in- 

 vention of woman in the state of savagery is her unique 

 contrivance for converting the poisonous root of the 

 manihot utilissima the staple food of tropical America 

 into a wholesome and nutritious aliment. It is a bag, 

 called matapi, which serves both as a press and as a sieve. 

 For the inhabitants of the vast basins of the Amazon and 

 the Orinoco, where the chief articles of diet are derived 

 from the manihot and the plantain, this invention of 

 woman is the most important ever made and ranks in im- 

 portance with the discovery by the same skilled food pur- 

 veyor of the dietetic value of manihot itself. 



