BULL. 30] 



METAMAPO MET ATE 



849 



suggesting manufacture in numbers by 

 specialists in the art. The use of artificial 

 alloys was unknown, the specimens of 

 gold-silver and gold-copper alloys ob- 

 tained in Florida being of exotic origin. 

 Stories of the hardening of copper by 

 these or other American tribes, other- 

 wise than by mere hammering, are all 

 without a shadow of foundation. A 

 few of the tribes, notably the Navaho 

 and some of the Pueblos of Arizona and 

 New Mexico, and the Haida, Tlingit, and 

 others in the far Northwest, are skilful 

 metal-worker.s, although the art as prac- 

 tised by the Navaho and described by 

 Matthews, while primitive in character, 

 was adopted from the Spaniards. The 

 Haida, Tlingit, and other tribes of Brit- 

 ish Columbia and Alaska have probably 

 retained the aboriginal methods in part 

 at least. Niblack ( Rep. Nat. Mus. 1888, 

 I"). 320) speaks of this work as follows: 

 " The tools with which the Indian arti- 

 san works out tlie surprisingly well- 

 finished metal ornaments and implements 

 of this region are few in number. For 

 bracelet making the silversmith has a 

 hammer, several cold chisels, and an 

 etching tool wdiich is merely a sharpened 

 steel point or edge. Improvised iron 

 anvils replace the stone implements of 

 this kind doubtlessly used in former days. 

 Copper is beaten into the required shapes. 

 Steel tools now used are very deftly tem- 

 pered and sharpened by thenative artisan, 

 who retains the primitive form of his im- 

 plement or tool, and merely substitutes 

 the steel for the former stone blade or 

 head. The ingenuity which the Indians 

 allow in adapting iron and steel to their 

 own uses is but one of the many evidences 

 of their cleverness and intelligence." 

 See Copper, Gold, Iron, Silver. 



The working of metals by primitive 

 methods are treated more or less fully 

 in the following works: Cushing in Am. 

 A nth rop., VI 1, 1894; Foster, Prehist. Races, 

 1878; Fowke, Archasol. Hist. Ohio, 1902; 

 Holmes in Am. Anthrop., in, 1901; 

 Hoy in Trans. Wis. Acad. Sci., iv, 1878; 

 McGuire in Am. Anthrop., v, no. 1, 

 1903; Matthews in 2d Rep. B. A. E., 

 1883; Moore (1) in Am. Anthrop., v, no. 

 1, 1903, (2) in Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 

 1894-1903; Moorehead in Am. Anthrop., 

 V, no. 1, 1903; Niblack in Rep. Nat. Mus. 

 1888, 1890; Packard in Smithson. Rep. 

 1892, 1893; Putnam in Ann. Reps. Pea- 

 body Mus. ; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, i-vi, 

 1851-57; Squier and Davis, Ancient Mon- 

 uments, 1848; Thomas in 12th Rep. B. A. 

 E., 1894; Willoughby in Am. Anthrop., 

 V, no. 1, 1903. (w. H. H.) 



Metamapo. A Calusa village on the 

 8. w. coast of Florida, about 1570. — 

 Fontaneda Memoir (c«. 1575), Smitli 

 trans., 19, 1854. 



Metate (Aztec: metlall). The name com- 

 monly given to the somewhat flat stones 

 on which maize, acorns, seeds, chile, and 

 other foods are ground by crushing and 

 rubbing with a hand-stone called a mul- 

 ler, or mano (Spanish 'hand'). With 

 tribes depending largely on such mate- 

 rials for food, mealing stones of one kind 

 or another are an important factor in 

 their domestic economy. The metates 

 of middle America are often elaljorate in 

 shape, many of them being carved to 

 represent animal forms, the upper sur- 

 face, or back, serving for the grinding 

 plate. In New Mexico and Arizona the 

 slabs, although carefully shai)ed, are 

 usually with- 

 out legs or 

 other projec- 

 tions; often 

 they are 

 trough- 

 shaped, and 

 the muller used is an oblong Hattish stone 

 of subrectangular outline. The modern 

 Pueblo Indians combine two or more of 

 the mealing plates in a 

 group Ijedded side by 

 side in clay and sepa- 

 rated and surrounded 

 by stone slabs, adobe, 

 or boards to retain 

 , The surfaces of the metates, 

 as of the mullers, are of 

 textures, grading from coarse 

 lava to fine sandstone, and corn crushed 

 on the coarser stone is i:)assed to the 

 others in succession for further refine- 

 ment until the product is almost as 

 fine as wheat flour. The i)rocesses for 

 pulverizing and for pulping are practi- 

 cally the same, the grain or other sub- 

 stance being treated dry in one case and 



(mindeleff) 



moist in the other. The Mexican type 

 of metate does not extend northward 

 much beyond the limits of the Pueblo 

 region, although similar flatfish stones 

 were and are used for grinding in many 

 parts of the country. The typical grind- 

 ing plate grades through many inter- 

 mediate forms into the typical mortar, 

 and the mano or muller similarly passes 

 from the typical flatfish form into the 



Bull. 30—05- 



-54 



