Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Indians of New Mexico and Arizona in 187 | Page 4

implements of war and hunting, articles used in domestic manufactures, articles of clothing and personal adornment, basketry, trappings for horses, images, toys, stone implements, musical instruments, and those used in games and religious ceremonies, woven fabrics, foods prepared and unprepared, paints for decorating pottery and other objects, earths of which their pottery is manufactured, mineral pigments, medicines, vegetable dyestuffs, &c. But the chief value of the collection is undoubtedly the great variety of vessels and other articles of pottery which it contains. In this respect it is perhaps the most complete that has been made from the pueblos. Quite a number of articles of this group may perhaps be properly classed as "ancient," and were obtained more or less uninjured; but by far the larger portion are of modern manufacture.
ARTICLES OF STONE.
These consist of pestles and mortars for grinding pigments; circular mortars, in which certain articles of food are bruised or ground; metates, or stones used for grinding wheat and corn; axes, hatchets, celts, mauls, scrapers &c.
The cutting, splitting, pounding, perforating, and scraping implements are generally derived from schists, basaltic, trachytic, and porphyritic rocks, and those for grinding and crushing foods are more or less composed of coarse lava and compact sandstones. Quite a number of the metate rubbing stones and a large number of the axes are composed of a very hard, heavy, and curiously mottled rock, a specimen of which was submitted to Dr. George W. Hawes, Curator of Mineralogy to the National Museum, for examination, and of which he says:
"This rock, which was so extensively employed by the Pueblo Indians for the manufacture of various utensils, has proved to be composed largely of quartz, intermingled with which is a fine, fibrous, radiated substance, the optical properties of which demonstrate it to be fibrolite. In addition, the rock is filled with minute crystals of octahedral form which are composed of magnetite, and scattered through the rock are minute yellow crystals of rutile. The red coloration which these specimens possess is due to thin films of hematite. The rock is therefore fibrolite schist, and from a lithological standpoint it is very interesting. The fibrolite imparts the toughness to the rock, which, I should judge, would increase its value for the purposes to which the Indians applied it."
The axes, hatchets, mauls, and other implements used for cutting, splitting, or piercing are generally more or less imperfect, worn, chipped, or otherwise injured. This condition is to be accounted for by the fact that they are all of ancient manufacture; an implement of this kind being rarely, if ever, made by the Indians at the present day. They are usually of a hard volcanic rock, not employed by the present inhabitants in the manufacture of implements. They have in most cases been collected from the ruins of the Mesa and Cliff dwellers, by whose ancestors they were probably made. I was unable to learn of a single instance in which one of these had been made by the modern Indians. In nearly all cases the edges, once sharp and used for cutting, splitting, or piercing, are much worn and blunt from use in pounding or other purposes than that for which they were originally intended. On more than one occasion I have observed a woman using the edge of a handsome stone axe in pulverizing volcanic rock to mix with clay for making pottery. Nearly all the edged stone implements are thus injured. Those showing the greatest perfection were either too small to utilize in this manner or had but recently been discovered when we obtained them.
The grinders and mortars are frequently found composed of softer rock, either ferruginous sandstone or gritty clays. For a more complete knowledge of these stone implements we must depend on a comparative study of large collections from different localities, and such information as the circumstances attending their discovery may impart, rather than upon their present condition or the uses for which they are now employed.
Metates or grain-grinders, pestles and rubbing stones belong to the milling industry among the Indians. The metates are generally quite large and heavy, and could not well be transported with the limited means at the command of Indians. They are therefore well adapted to the uses of village Indians, who remain permanently in a place and prosecute agricultural pursuits. They are generally of rectangular shape, and from 10 to 20 inches in length by 6 to 12 in width, and are composed of various kinds of rock, the harder, coarse-grained kinds being preferable, though in some instances sandstone is employed; the most desirable stone is porous lava. These stones are sometimes carried with families of the Pueblos moving short distances to the valleys of streams in which they have farms in cultivation. In the permanent villages they are arranged in small rectangular