FowKE] PAINT AND CEREMONIAL STONES. 115 



The specimen illustrated in figure 128 (yellow quartz, from a mouud 

 in Kauawha valley) is intermediate betweeu cones and hemispheres. 

 The sides are polished, while the flat bottom aud 

 rounded top are roughened. As it has taiut red 

 £'■ "-^ 'illiHHi st^i^s, it may have been used as a paint-muller. 



ipl' ■ ■ « ii' Paint Stones. 



^'^i-S- The articles known as paint stones scarcely come 



Fio i28.-nuiiu^i.i.ii.i under the head of implements. Some of the hema- 

 tite pieces are incipient celts, hemispheres, or cones; but most of them 

 were used merely to furnish paint, at any rate until rubbed down quite 

 small. They are of every degree of firmness, 

 some being as brittle as dry clay, others like 

 iron. Most pieces in the collection are from 

 Kanawha valley, but others are fiom south- 

 eastern Tennessee, northeastern Arkansas, and 

 Caldwell county, North Carolina. From the 

 last-named section, as well as from Chester 

 county, South Carolina, and McMinn county, *''° i29.-Pami stone 

 Tennessee, come pieces of graphite more or less rubbedj and one has 

 been sent in from Elmore couuty, Alabama. 



The specimen illustrated in figure 129, from a mound, is a good 

 example of the manner in which the harder hematite was ground. 



Ceremonial Stones. 

 Functions amd Purposes. 



The so-called "ceremonial stones" are variously subdivided and 

 named by different writers. They are supposed to have been devoted 

 to religious, superstitious, medical, emblematic, or ceremonial purposes ; 

 to be badges of authority, insignia of rank, tokens of valorous deeds, 

 or perhaps some sort of heraldic device; in short, the uses to which 

 they might, in their different forms, be assigned, are limited only by 

 the imagination. 



According to Nilsson the ancieut Scandinavians wore " victory stones" 

 suspended around tlieir necks,' and the Eskimo wear charms and 

 amulets to bring success in fishing and hunting.^ Adair (1775) says 

 that the American Archi-magus wore a breastplate made of a white 

 conch-shell, with two holes bored in the middle of it, through which he 

 put the ends of an otter-skin strap aud fastened a buck-horn button to 

 the outside of each. ^ An explanation of the purpose of many of the 

 smaller perforated stones also may be found in Nilsson's remark'' that 

 the small ovoid or ellipsoid ones were used as buttons; a string being 

 tied to the robe at one end, run through the bole and tied in a knot. 



' Stone Age, p 215. 



2 Abbott: Primitive Industry, p. 408. 



* American Indians, p. 48. 



* Stone Age, p. 83. 



