IT AMERICAN MUSEUMS 47 



that those who made them were an agricultural people, 

 cultivating the ground largely and with skill, as did most 

 of the tribes on the eastern coast and in California when 

 Europeans first encountered them. We have heard so 

 much of late years of the warlike and nomad character of 

 the American Indian tribes that we are apt to forget that 

 many of the more peaceful agricultural peoples have been 

 exterminated. Yet the early settlers in the north-eastern 

 States were often saved from famine by the stores of 

 maize of the peaceful Indians. 



The extensive use of roots, nuts, acorns, maize, &c. as 

 food required facilities for cracking, crushing, or grinding ; 

 and hence some of the most common implements, both of 

 modern Indian tribes and throughout all prehistoric ages, 

 are hammers, grinders, pestles, and mortars, of varied 

 sizes, forms, and workmanship. The pounding, crushing, 

 and grinding stones are of very varied forms, from the un- 

 worked pebble up to the most elaborate grinder with a 

 broad handle, something like a tailor's iron, but carved out 

 of solid stone. Corresponding to these are the grinding- 

 stones and mortars, of equally varied forms and sizes. 

 Some are flat, some slightly hollowed; some have 

 numerous small pits or cups in them, probably to hold 

 nuts of various kinds, so as to prevent them from flying 

 away when being cracked. From these we pass on gradu- 

 ally to shallow basins and large deep mortars, some of the 

 latter found in California being a foot or eighteen inches 

 wide, and having corresponding stone pestles, some of 

 which are two and a half feet long. 



We now come to a series of implements or articles for 

 domestic use of varied form and size, but often involving a 

 large amount of labour. 



In Fig. 16, we have representations of five types of 

 stone spoons or cups with handles, some of the former are 

 only two inches diameter, while the latter are often six or 

 eight inches. These are very nicely finished. Others 

 were somewhat ruder, and there are many of larger size 

 used as plates, or bowls, up to ten or twelve inches across. 

 These are all from California, where stone work attained a 

 high degree of perfection. 



