158 PERFORATED STONES. 



smaller and narrower in the middle; and is hardly ever drilled, or finished by drilling, 

 but simply pecked/ My first impression, on finding these perforated stones, was that 

 they were the heads of war-clubs, to which those of a pear-shape especially seem to 

 answer. By examining a large number of fragments, however, I found most of the 

 stone-rings had been broken in two, parallel with the hole, which could not be caused 

 by the side pressure of the club, but by a wedge-like action against the inner sides. 

 The suggestion that these stones were weights for digging-sticks, such as are still in 

 use among the Hottentots, I received from an aged half-breed while working on Santa 

 Cruz island in 1S75, and 1 have since become convinced that such was their use. If we 

 examine a stone-ring which has done some service, we find the hole shows a polish and 

 fine stripe running lengthwise, and wear on one end of the ring imparted by the hand 

 while in use and in carrying the digging-stick where it naturally would rest, with its 

 projecting stone weight, against the hand. I found some of the weights thus deeply 

 worn, and by mounting one on a proper stick it fitted nicely to the grasped hand. I 

 also noticed a specimen, among the many sent to the Peabody Museum, in which the 

 hole had been enlarged in full width but in one direction only — making an elliptic hole — 

 worn by the digging-stick while worked, when its own weight could only act against 

 the sides of the stick corresponding to the flattened ends of the wooden spade. There 

 were two methods by which the hole in the stone was made, both of which are illus- 

 trated by numerous specimens in the collection. In one instance the weight, almost 

 exclusively of steatite, but occasionally of a harder stone, was first rougldy worked 

 into the desired ball or a more flattened disk; the hole was then chiselled from both 

 sides until it met ; it was then drilled out to an equal width throughout ; and the weight 

 was finally finished by working the outside in a symmetrical form. The more elab- 

 orate weights, however, were finished in outline before the hole was bored. The hole 

 was made, no doubt, with a flint point ; the strice are deep and the width of an unfin- 

 ished hole decreases towards the centre. A drilling apparatus might have been used, 

 for the streaks of the drill are well defined and in full circle, which could hardly be 

 attained by turning the borer simply between the hands. 



"Among the weights for digging-sticks we find many of small sizes and inferior 

 make, which could not have been of any practical use for this purpose, and often deviat- 

 ing so much in form as to make it doubtful if they were designed as weights. The 

 same deviation from the practical size we find sometimes among mortars — not meaning 

 the paint-cups — the pestles, and frequently among the comales (the flat stone plates for 

 baking tortillas) which were formerly extensively in use, judging by the many speci- 

 mens collected. Such articles we may safely bring under the head of children's play- 

 things, in whose graves they are usually found." 



Thus on the evidence of the half-breed Mr. Schumacher is strongly 



inclined to consider that at least one use of the perforated stones was 



identical with the use of similar stones by the natives of Southern Africa. 



It is therefore important to note that the present Indians do not make any 



use of stones of this character, and that unless we give full credence to the 



story of the half-breed we are surrounded by the same mystery regarding 



these perforated stones in California as in Chili, though we know that in 



