MORTARS MADE OF STONE. 83 



a hollowed pebble that has been, perhaps, used as a paint-cup for toilet pur- 

 poses, and by simple receptacles of pottery. 



Regarded as mortars for preparing food and reducing mineral pigments 

 to powder, these vessels are represented in the interior and on the Atlantic 

 coast by objects for like purposes, but of two distinct forms ; one being 

 natural hollows, in stationary rocks, known as "pot-holes," which are 

 also found in California,* and, the other, irregular boulders of porta- 

 ble sizes (such as Fig. 5, Plate V) that have more or less deeply worn 

 depressions on one or both sides; a third form of mortar, at one time in very 

 common use, was made of wood. To these we need not further allude. 



Dr. YaiTOw has given me the following interesting information in rela- 

 tion to some ancient mortars found near the site of his excavations: " Just in 

 the rear of Mr. Thomas Move's vanche- house movtavs weve found in a gulch, 

 made by vain and evosion, that weve nearly like Fig. 5, Plate V, but 

 larger; othevs weve almost identical with the metates used by the Pueblo 

 Indians and Mexicans, and neavly all, if not all, had been used until a hole 

 had been wovn througk the bottom. Some of these articles had been cov- 

 ered with 8 and 10 feet of earth. No skeletons or bones, no vessels of 

 steatite, in fact nothing but the remains of grinding-stones, were discov- 

 ered. It was intended to fully explore this locality, but circumstances 

 prevented further work here. All of these mortars were oblong in shape, 

 and made of sandstone. The largest were quite 24 inches in length. 

 Mr. Bowers has also found similar mortars or grinding-stones, but with 

 feet." 



The large sandstone mortars found in the graves were made from blocks 

 of stone and from boulders. Many of the smaller ones give every appear- 

 ance of being ordinary oval, water-worn pebbles, that have been laboriously 

 pecked out upon one side until a maximum capacity has been obtained 



* Mr. Powers mentions that the Yokuts, who inhabit the central portion of the State, use holes in 

 boulders as mortars : 



"They say that in remote times they were accustomed to rub their acorns to flour ou a stone 

 slightly hollowed like the Mexican metate, which was a suggestion of the mouse ; but nowadays they 

 pound them in holes on top of huge boulders, which was a suggestion of the wiser coyote. On a boul- 

 der in Coarse Gold Gulch I counted eighty-six of these acorn-holes, which shows that they must have 

 been used many centuries." — Tribes of California, p. 376. — F. W. P. 



