44 CUP-SHAPED AND OTHER LAPIDARIAN SCULPTURES. 



Latin race who came in contact with them (Cabec^a de Vaca, the anony- 

 mous Knight of Elvas, Biedma), and many authors of more modern times, 

 mention these fruits as an important article of food of the aboriginal inhabit- 

 ants. It can be imagined that they consumed a large quantity in a raw 

 state; but they also prepared from them an oily, milk-like liquid, which 

 they used as an ingredient in the preparation of other food. Full details in 

 regard to this subject have been published by Colonel Charles C Jones in 

 his work on the antiquities of the Southern Indians, to which I would refer 

 those specially interested in the subject* 



He there also draws for the first time attention to a class of utensils which 

 he designates as "nut-stones," and to which he ascribes, as the name im- 

 plies, the same mode of employment which I feel inclined to claim for the 

 pitted stones just described. Colonel Jones found the relics called nut- 

 stones by him in considerable number in Middle and Upper Georgia, but 

 most abundantly on the site of an old Indian village near the confluence 

 of the Great Kiokee Creek and the Savannah River (Columbia County). 

 More than thirty were there seen by him within the space of a few acres. 

 He thus describes them : — 



"They consist of irregular masses of compact sandstone or soapstone, 

 weighing from two to ten pounds, in whose surfaces occur circular depres- 

 sions, from an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, and from one-quarter 

 to three-quarters of an inch in depth. Upon the broadest and flattest sides 

 these depressions, from three to five in number, are located close together. 

 To produce them the harder stones had been pecked and the softer gouged. 

 Not only on one side do they appear, but frequently on both sides, and 

 often in the ends, so that the stone, when set up in the earth on any one of 

 its faces, would always present one or more of these cup-shaped cavities 

 ready for use. Their cavities are so located that one, two, three, four, five, 

 and sometimes more nuts coiild be cracked at a single blow delivered by 

 means of the circular flat crushing-stones so common and so often found in 

 direct connection with the rude articles now under consideration. The cups 

 are just large enough to hold a hickory-nut or a walnut in proper position, 

 so that, when struck, its pieces would be prevented from being widely scat- 



*.Ionos (Charles C): Autiquitics of the Southern Indiaus; New York, lb7?i, p. 315, etc. 



