RAui NORTH AMERICAN CUP-STONES. 47 



five of which have been found in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, and 

 Illinois, while the remaining six are derived from Ohio,' which State, I 

 believe, has furnished the majority of the known specimens. 



An Ohio cup-stone in the National Museum deserves particular men- 

 tion, on account of one of its cavities being covered with red paint, which 

 cannot be removed by moistening. It is the only case of this kind noticed 

 by me, and the use of the cavity as a paint-cup in this instance may be 

 accidental. I therefore will not venture to express the opinion that all 

 North American cup-stones of the type represented by Fig. 87 are to be 

 considered as utensils designed to hold colors. Yet the possibility of this 

 mode of application cannot be denied, considering that the Indian inhab- 

 itants of the East and of the Mississippi Valley employed different kinds 

 of paints, each of which liad to be made ready for use in a separate recep- 

 tacle. Small paint-cups of earthenware, joined together, and certainly 

 reminding one by their arrangement of the cavities in the stones under 

 notice, are in use among the Zuni Indians of New Mexico. Several speci- 

 mens were obtained by Mr. James Stevenson in 1879, during his expeditio*n 

 to New Mexico and Arizona, undertaken under the auspices of the Bureau 

 of Ethnology. Fig. 38 represents one of the articles in question. It con- 

 sists of four united cups of an inch and a half in diameter and about an 

 inch in depth.* The paints still adhering to the inner surfaces of these 

 cups are red, white, yellow, and blue. There is but little difference be- 

 tween the dimensions of the cups and the cavities of the cup-stones just 

 described. 



Mr. Stevenson obtained on the same occasion from Indians of the 

 Pueblo of Tesuque, New Mexico, a small mortar and pestle, both of stone, 

 which were used by them in the preparation of paint. This simple appa- 

 ratus, represented by Fig. 39, hardly would attract particular attention, if 

 it were not for a cup-shaped cavity excavated on one side of the pestle, 

 and perfectly corresponding in shape and size with the artificial depressions 

 of the cup-stones. The cavity served to receive a portion of the liquid paint 

 prepared in the mortar. Such at least was the account given to Mr. Ste- 

 venson by the Tesuque Indians. They probably poured into the cavity a 



* The number of cups in the specimens obtained by Mr. Stevenson varies between two and five. 



