SIMILAE STOKES FROM AFRICA AND INDIA. 137 



That these stones were used for any purpose for which they were 

 handy, or easily adapted, is confirmed by the following statement by Mr. 

 Stevens:* "In the Christy collection are some perforated stone disks, F)\ 

 inches in diameter, used for crushing- or grinding grasshoppers, spiders, &c, 

 by the Buchuanas of South Africa, who regard these insects as forming 

 a valuable article of food. When digging wild roots they put this stone 

 upon the digging-stick to give it greater weight. A specimen of such a 

 digging-stick, with the stone attached, is in the Museum of the Missionary 

 Society of London." 



In illustration of the common use of the digging-stick in Africa, the 

 following myth, expressing the Zulu theory of the origin of Apes, is of in- 

 terest : " The Zulus still tell the tale of an Amafeme tribe who became 

 baboons. They were an idle race who did not like to dig, but wished to 

 eat at other people's houses, saying, ' We shall live, although we do not 

 dig, if we eat the food of those who cultivate the soil.' So the chief of 

 that place, of the house of Tusi, assembled the tribe, and they prepared 

 food and went out into the wilderness. They fastened on behind them the 

 handles of their now useless digging -sticks, these grew and became tails, hair 

 made its appearance on their bodies, their foreheads became overhanging, 

 and so they became baboons, who are still called Tusi's men."f 



Mr. V. Ball has shown J tlTat perforated stones of the same character 

 as those found in Africa and America were also formerly used in the cen- 

 tral provinces of India, and gives a figure of the single specimen which had 

 come under his notice. This stone was found on the surface at the Mofani 

 coal mines, and is described as "a water-worn pebble of basalt weighing I 

 pound 10 ounces. The central perforation is bevelled away to both faces." 

 The figure shows the stone to be from 4 to 4i inches in diameter and 1£ inches 

 in thickness, with a central perforation nearly two inches in diameter on either 

 face, and about three-fourths of an inch in the centre. In every respect 

 this stone is identical with many specimens from California. Mr. Ball sug- 

 gests that as it was too heavy for a spindle-whorl, it may have been used 



'Flint Chips, p. 05. tTyler, Primitive Culture,- vol. i, p. 376. 



iOn an ancient perforated stone found in the Satpnra Hills. Proceedings Asiatic' Society of 

 Bengal, March, 1^74, p. 96, pi. v. 



