HOFFMAN] 



SHELL IMPLEMENTS EARTHENWARE 



257 



about the manner of using these stone objects. The knives were 

 made of flint (hornstone), and were about 8 inches long, an inch and 

 a half broad, and sharply pointed; some indeed were sharp enough to 

 cut moose skin with ease. These implements were used for cutting 

 meat, for scraping arrowshafts, and in making bows. 



Some of the Menomiui say that musselshells are used even today, 

 when necessity demands, both for spoons and for cutting. They are 

 also sometimes used for scraping deerskin in tanning. The survival 

 of the practice of thus using shells is not at all astonishing, for they 

 serve the purpose as well as almost anything else, and thick strong 

 shells of several species are abundant in the rivers of Wisconsin. 



Earthenware is no longer made by the Menomiui. though some of the 

 oldest women remember when pottery making was engaged in. 



MORTARS AND PESTLES 



In one corner of the living room, or perhaps outside the door, will 

 occasionally be found troughs fashioned from solid trunks for containing 

 water for fowls and other domestic animals, and sometimes a wooden 

 mortar (figure 3G) for crushing medicinal roots and plants is observed. 



Fig. 36 — Wooden mortar and pestle. 



These mortars are fashioned from a section of the trunk of an oak; 

 they measure 11 inches in height, 10 inches in width, and 16 inches in 

 length over the handles. The cavity, which is made by means of an ax, 

 measures 9 inches in length and 7 inches in width at the top; it is 10 

 inches deep and terminates in a wedge-shape bottom, rounded so as to 

 receive the end of a double-head pestle. The latter is about 37 inches 

 in length, the ends being from 2 to 2+. inches iu diameter, while the 

 middle third, which serves as a handle, is somewhat thinner. The 

 specimen above figured, which was used for "medicine pouuding" only, 

 shows evidence of considerable age and much use. 



TROUGHS 



The troughs above mentioned are made in a manner similar to that in 

 which the mortars are fashioned, and they are from 3 to 4 feet in length. 

 14 eth 17 



