14 PERFORATED STONES 



Mr. John Sanderson, 1 in ;i paper on stone implements from Natal, 

 even more explicitly affirms tbe use of perforated stones as weights to 

 digging sticks. lie says : 



At the same time there are two faets to wbieli I wish to direct attention: one is 

 that certain implements of stone are still in use among the native races, among which 

 are perforated balls employed to give weight to digging sticks, and stone hammers. 



With equal explicitness the same nse is stated in a note by Dr. Mac- 

 alister : 2 



Another implement not uncommon among them was a heavy stone fastened to the 

 thicker end of a pointed stick, sometimes :! feet long, though occasionally not more 

 than half that length, its use being either to dig up edible roots or to make holes in 

 search of water. 3 



On the other hand W. D. Gooch 4 is inclined to discard the digging 

 weight theory, and to class all perforated stones from Africa as weap- 

 ons, tit least so far as their primary nse is concerned. Eeferring to a 

 Natal specimen, he says: 



I consider from its form that it has been intended as a weapon of offense, and I do 

 not think it was mounted on a handle, because one portion of the, periphery has been 

 flattened so as to admit of its being firmly grasped in the hand, which it tits very 

 comfortably, and thus held to have been used in striking forwards and downwards, 

 so as to inflict a. severe blow, calculated to give a quietus to an adversary. * * * 

 On the other hand, its sharp edge and apparent fashioning to the hand are sug- 

 gestive of its use as a sacrificial instrument similar to that used by certain Poly- 

 nesians. 



This specimen appears to differ somewhat from the perforated stones 

 elsewhere described, and to be, as Mr. Sanderson terms it, ''unique." 

 If originally designed for either of the purposes mentioned by Gooch, 

 it is difficult to understand why this stone was perforated. He con- 

 tinues : 



Throughout the greater portion of South Africa, reaching from Cape Agulhas in the 

 south to the Transvaal in the north, occur rouwd stone implements perforated and 

 fashioned into a globular form. To my mind these were all fashioned for the pur- 

 pose of use as clubs, to 1)0 mounted on a stick thrust through the perforation, and 

 secured by wedges aud by hide. 



I am aware that it has been received as an opinion that they were only intended as 

 weights for the purpose of assisting the aborigines in digging for roots, on which they 

 teed at certain times. In tbe Christy collection is a stick so arranged with the prong 

 of an antelope horn at the point, aud I have heard of many instances of their present 

 use in this manner among the Hottentot and Bushmen tribes in Cape Colony. I 

 believe, however, that the aborigines using them now are only utilizing the stones 

 fabricated by their predecessors for a different purpose, as I can find no record of 

 any native being found able to make a similar stone. * * * 



In any ease, I believe they have only been employed secondarily as digging stick 

 weights, and primarily were undoubtedly clubheads; as such I here deal with them. 



'.Tour. Anthrop. Inst. Great Brit, & Ireland, Vol. VIII, p. 10, 1879. 



2 Op. cifc., Vol. X, p. 400, 1881. 



:; llolub's Seven Years in South Africa, Vol. II, p. 430. 



'Jour. Anthrop. Inst. Great Brit. <& Ireland, Vol. XI, p. 128, 1882. 



