"...for grinding acorn meal. This is a large flat granite boulder upon which there are several holes which serve as mortars. The stones noted lying on this boulder and standing up in the holes are used as pestles. As it takes a great deal of time to reduce the acorns to fine meal or flour and all of the work must be done out of doors, a windbreak is built around the boulder from brush and a sort of wickiup is built over it to sheidl (sic) the women from the sun. If these Indian communities could have one or more of the small iron hand mills now upon the market, a great deal of labor would be saved."
Accessed from:
http://www.archives.gov/pacific/education/curriculum/4th-grade/acorn-photographs.html
Updated link (02/02/2020):
https://www.archives.gov/files/pacific/education/curriculum/pdf/acorn-handouts.pdf
For what it is worth: there is such a multi-mortar boulder in Billerica on top of the hill in the town forest (next to Rt 3).
ReplyDeleteFound a photo at http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2006/02/from-journals-indian-mortars.html
ReplyDelete-what's in them?
And a reflection???
ReplyDelete