The women of the Pima Indians of Arizona gather great quantities of mesquite-beans, which grow wild in abundance, and which, when nearly ripe, are dried hard; in preparing them for food they are first pounded in a wooden mortar, and are then boiled until they become soft. These Indians convert their wheat into flour by grinding it by hand on their mclales, which are large flat stones, on which the wheat is placed after having been slightly parched over the fire, and is then ground into coarse flour by rubbing and crushing it with another, smaller stone.
ilfor/ars and the year 1819 there was disclosed in the alluvium of the carse-land where the river Forth winds its circuitous course through ancient historic scenes rich in animal remains and pre historic weapons a primitive quern, or mortar, fashioned from the section of an oak, such as is yet in use by some tribes of American Indians for pounding their grain.
The mortar (morlarium) used by the Romans was formed of a stone or other solid material hollowed into the shape of a shallow basin, in which ingredients were kneaded and mixed with a small pestle worked by one band in a round-about direction. The pihim was a large and powerful instrument for braying materials in a deep mortar. It was held in both hands, and the action employed when using it was that of pounding by repeated blows.
The Roman pis/a- literally means "one who pounds corn in a mortar" —that is, a miller; because in very early times, before the invention of mills for grinding, the corn was brayed into flour with a very heavy pestle. Subsequently the same word signified "a baker," because bakers ground the flour with which they made their bread.
Pliny says that, in the estimation of some, bread made of broken grain is superior to that more finely ground in the better-constructed mills; hence the inference that throughout the greater part of Italy grain for bread was pounded in a mortar with an iron-shod pestle. In course of time the mortar was ridged and the pestle notched, forming a machine which had a grating action on the grain.
Dr. Tschudi describes four of the Peruvian mortars, which were carved in porphyry, basalt, and granite. Two examples are given in Figure 19. One, a llama, 4 inches in length, from Hfrarmachaeo, is cut in a close-grained block of stone; the other is of darkish-brown schist (Wil son).
Dampier (r6S9) relates that on the island of Mindanao the so-called "libby tree" yields a white pith, which the natives scrape out and beat lustily with a wooden pestle in a great mortar or trough, and which, after being formed into cakes and baked, furnishes a very good bread. Cunning says that among the Tahitians a pestle of stone provided with a crutch like handle is used for pounding the bread-fruit on a wooden block. Nie buhr found in Arabia not only hand-mills, but also oblong, hollow grind ing-stones, and spindle-shaped pestles thick in the middle and pointed at both ends. In the concavity of the stone the soaked corn was ground to meal with the pestle. In early times in England soldiers and officers while in camp prepared a peculiar bread called mil/Earls. For this pur pose they occasionally employed hand-mills, though the corn was gener ally pounded in a mortar; the meal was then made into cakes, which were baked on live embers.
Indian corn was the staple product of the aborigines of North Amer ica. The dry grain was prepared for boiling by crushing it into coarse par ticles with pestles in a rude wooden or stone -mortar. This severe labor was performed by the women, who each day prepared the requisite sup plies. The ancient stone pestles found in the fields formerly occupied by the Indian tribes throughout the Atlantic States afford abundant evidence of the practice of using these simple implements. For one person a single gill of meal mixed with water was sufficient for the day, as was the case with the fithla of the Mexicans, which consisted of parched corn well ground and seasoned with sugar and spices.
The mode of pounding maize varied considerably. The women exer cised their ingenuity in the use of the pestles and mortars, which were sometimes elaborately made. Figure 14 shows the perfection to which the hominy-block was carried. Its hard-wood pestle, 4 feet in length, was smoothly wrought and its ends were rounded, with reduced centre for easy handling; the hollowed-out log beside it is a receptacle for the saturated grain. On the head of the implement (jig. S) found in Massachusetts is an ingeniously wrought symbol which is the name of the owner of one of these antique pestles. This symbol or totemic device is a deer, apparently the fawn. The substance employed is a species of graywacke.