SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I92I 



91 



we judge from the similar objects of aborigines of Venezuela they 

 were more probably used for stamping fabrics or even for printing 

 certain totemistic or other designs on the face or body. 



There is in the Abbott collection an artificially worked stone (fig. 

 96), about a foot in length, which appears to have been used as a 



--*t 





Fig. 98. — Stone Cassava grinder. Yaqui del 

 Norte, Jarabacoa. Size : 12^ inches x igj/^ inches. 

 U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 292998. 



baton, possibly a badge of office. One end bears incised designs 

 representing eyes and mouth suggesting a human head. 



Figure 97 resembles outwardly a pestle, but a closer examination 

 shows that it is made of clay, a material impossible for an effective 

 grinding implement. It has many pits on the under surface (shown 

 in the figure ) which suggests that it was functionally like the cylinder 

 above mentioned used for imprinting paint patterns on the human 

 body or woven fabrics. 



