558 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



Wooden paddle-shaped pot stirrers, cadV, are nearly always to be seen where 

 cooking is going on. They vary greatly in size and pattern. Ordinarily the 

 top is simply disk-shaped. The use of the stirrer comes in when soup and 

 vegetables are being boiled, to keep the mess from sticking to the pot. 



Gourds, td'mbactu', of various shapes are made use of about the house in 

 many different ways. They are easily obtained and require little or no labor 

 to fit them for use. As drinking cups, general receptacles and dippers they 

 come in very handy. ( Speck, 1909, p. 42. ) 



Plate 71, figure 2, shows a gourd bottle seen among the Alabama 

 Indians about 25 years ago. 



Caddo spoons are shown in Bulletin 132 (Swanton, 1942, pi. 16, 

 fig. 2). 



WOODEN MORTARS 



The Fidalgo of Elvas tells us that De Soto's companions were 

 accustomed "to beat out the maize in log mortars with a one-handed 

 pestle of wood," and there is every reason to believe that these 

 mortars were "obtained" from the Indians, for a little farther on 

 he refers to the "mortars, in which the natives beat maize" (Robert- 

 son, 1933, pp. 54, 74). These mortars were so much a matter of 

 course throughout the entire area we are considering that there are 

 relatively few references to them and scarcely any attempts to de- 

 scribe them. Smith and Strachey barely mention wooden mortars 

 and pestles, and the former includes them among the articles manu- 

 factured by women, the only intimation of the kind in all our litera- 

 ture. (Smith, John, Tyler ed., 1907, p. 96; Strachey, 1849, p. 73.) 

 Lawson (1860, p. 165) speaks of a tree "which we call red hickory, 

 the heart whereof being very red, firm and durable" was used in 

 making "walking sticks, mortars, pestles, and several other fine 

 turnery wares." 



In 1595 San Miguel reported that the Guale Indians of the neigh- 

 borhood of St. Simons Island pounded their corn into flour "in deep 

 and narrow wooden mortars: the mano is a kind of rammer more 

 than two yards (varas) in length and the rammer widens above and 

 is slender in the mortar" (Garcia, 1902, p. 197) . 



When Oglethorpe visited the Coweta Creeks in 1739, he found that 

 "they do not make use of Mills to grind their corn in but in lieu 

 thereof use a Mortar made out of the Stock of a Tree which they 

 cut and burn hollow and then Pound their Corn therein" (Bushnell, 

 1908, pp. 573-574). 



The [Florida Seminole] mortar is made [says MacCauley] from a log of live- 

 oak (?) wood, ordinarily about two feet in length and from fifteen to twenty 

 inches in diameter. One end of the log is hollowed out to quite a depth, and 

 in this, by the hammering of a pestle made of mastic wood, the corn is reduced 



