HARTMAN: ARCHEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES ON THE PACIFIC COAST OF COSTA RICA 53 
(g) Banner-stones or Club-heads. 
A group of stone objects of highly interesting and rather unique character found 
in the burial-ground at Las Guacas are the banner-stones or ornamental clubs or 
maces. Concerning this group of stone artefacts what has been said above regard- 
ing metates may be repeated. At no other locality in all Central America, so far as 
Ihave been able to ascertain, has such a large number of similar implements been 
found. On the uplands of Costa Rica, with the exception of the beautiful double- 
bladed serrated ax or banner-stone (Archeological Researches in Costa Rica, Pl. 60, 
Fig. 6), which form seems to be limited to the burial-grounds of a small district near 
Cartago, only a few clubs, shaped like rings or cog-wheels, have been here and there 
encountered. In the vicinity of San José there were exhumed during my last stay 
in an ancient burial-ground a few clubs of the type of those found at Las Guacas, 
which I procured. They had probably in olden time found their way to this place 
through barter. On the peninsula of Nicoya it seems strangely enough that this 
class of implements has as yet never been found at any other spot than Las Guacas. 
Future excavations, however, will show the limits of their distribution in these 
parts. Nearly all of these clubs represent a head, human or animal. They can be 
classified in groups according to their shape. ‘They represent, 1, hwman heads ; 2, 
mammal heads; 3, the heads of birds; 4, birds; 5, two-legged monsters; 6, alligators ; 
7, clubs without any zoomorphic characters. All the clubs are comparatively small 
and are perforated in the center by a large circular hole for the handle which has 
been drilled through them. In the head-shaped clubs it is the large and heavy 
front portion which is carved into a face or head, while the posterior half is simply 
ring-shaped with rather thin walls. In the clubs which embody birds or alligators 
and have the perforations in the center of the body, the back portion (tail) is cone- 
shaped. The highly ornamental, zoomorphic features of these implements and 
their size, which is in many cases too small to have admitted of their use for prac- 
tical purposes, bear witness to their purely symbolical and ceremonial character. 
Most of these clubs illustrate in the most perfect manner the employment of the 
hollow cylindrical drill. The center perforation or shaft-hole often plainly shows a 
succession of circular strize at regular intervals, and in the middle there is often a 
deeper furrow, where the borings from each end met. Pl. XXXII, Fig. 5, illus- 
trates one of the detached cylindrical center-cores of a club. The ridge at the 
meeting place near the middle is plainly visible on this specimen. On many of the 
heads the circular base of the core is purposely left in order to form an eye or an 
ear. It is possible that in the round pits, which have served as eyes in many of 
these objects, pieces of mother-of-pearl or other perishable material were inserted. 
