48 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



to obtain it because the tribe held it as communal property and looked 

 upon it with a feeling of veneration. The pestles differ as much as 

 the mortars, some being mere clublike sticks. 



Pestle, Hetge'o* or He'tgen"kha'^ The Seneca words mean 

 upper part and are derived from hetgaa'gwa, meaning upper. The 

 pestle is generally of hard maple wood about 48 inches long. It is 

 shaped the same on both ends and either may be used for pounding, 

 although one end is generally chosen and always used thereafter. The 

 other end serves as a weight that adds to the power of the arm in 

 making the stroke. The mortar and pestle are used in pulverizing 

 corn for soups, hominy, puddings and bread, and are by far the most 

 important utensils used in preparing corn foods made from meal. 



Stone mortar and pestle, Yeistonnia"ta'. Up to within the time of 

 the Civil War it was a common thing for the Seneca, as well as 

 others of the Iroquois, to use stone mortars and pestles or rather 

 mullers. Some of these mortars were so small that they could easily 

 be carried in a basket without inconvenience. Corn could be cracked 

 for soup by a single blow or by rubbing once or twice it could be re- 



Fig. 5 Seneca stone mortar and muller. The mortar is 8 inches in length 



duced to meal. Many of the older people remember these '' stone 

 mills " by which their odjis'to"nonda', cracked corn hominy was 

 made- [see fig. 5] 



M. R. Harrington found one of these m.ortars still in use by the 

 Oneida in Madison county and described it in the American An- 

 thropologist.^ 



1 Ga'ni'ga' in Mohawk. 



^Cf. Jesuit Relations, 1716-27, v. 67:213. They crush the corn between 

 two stones reducing it to a meal; afterward they make of it a porridge 

 which they sometimes season with fat or with dried fish. 



3 New Ser. v. 10, no. 4. 1908. p. 579- 



