West Indian Stone-Implements. 115 
were, like the Mexicans and the more civilized of the tribes 
of the North, whom, as I hope to point out some future time, 
they resemble in other respefts also, were maize-eaters 
and did really often use these mullers to crush corn ; and 
that when they afterwards went into Guiana they carried 
with them the habit and tradition of their mullers, and used 
them to some extent to crush the cassava which, rather 
than corn, they found was there the breadstuff, while at 
the same time they, as a rule, adopted the method of 
preparing the cassava root by grating and squeezing 
which they found commonly practised on the mainland.* 
But, whether used for crushing maize or other sub- 
stances, it is certain that mullers are comparatively com- 
mon on the West Indian Islands. The GRAHAM BRIGGS 
collection includes eleven very fine examples, of consi- 
derable variety of form. 
Just as with the wedge-shaped implements, so with these 
pounders, it is difficult to say which of them were probably 
used simply grasped in the hand, as a pestle, and which of 
them were bound, or otherwise attached, to handles and 
used as ' maul sticks,' i.e., heavy hammers or mallets. For 
instance, a glance at the one here represented as fig. 14, 
Plate X will show that toward its upper end it is encircled 
by a deep groove such as, if it occurred in a celt, we should 
say was meant to allow of the hafting of this implement. 
But in this case the groove is so deep and broad that it 
might very well be intended, not to facilitate any form of 
* I have elsewhere (" Among the Ind. of G." p. 287) pointed out that, 
an analogous way, it was probably the Caribs from the W. I. who intro- 
duced the use of cotton and the method of preparing this by spinning 
among the native tribes of Guiana, these latter having before used only 
palm-fibres, which they prepared by twisting them on their thighs. 
PS 
