The Archaeology of the Yakima Valley Part 4

[76] Smith, (c), p. 411.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 17 (202-8161). Fragment of Coiled Basket of Splint Foundation and Bifurcated St.i.tch. From grave No. 10 (5) in a rock-slide about half a mile above the mouth of Naches River. 1/2 nat. size.]

_Basketry._ The gathering of berries as well as of roots is suggested by fragments of baskets which have been found. One of these is shown in Fig. 17. It was found in grave No. 10 (5) in a rock-slide about a half mile above the mouth of the Naches River. It is coiled with splint foundation and bifurcated st.i.tch. Judging from other baskets of the same kind, it was probably once imbricated. This type of basketry is widely distributed towards the north and with gra.s.s foundation is even found in Siberia.[77] Commonly the coiled basketry in the Nez Perce region to the east was made with bifurcated st.i.tch,[78] by means of a sharpened awl which was the only instrument used in weaving it. Some were imbricated, although this style has not been made for many years, and only a few of the older natives remember women who could make them.[79] Some similar basketry of a finer technique was found with this fragment.

[77] Jochelson, p. 632.

[78] Spinden, p. 194.

[79] Spinden, p. 193.

PREPARATION OF FOOD.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 18 (202-8394). Fragment of a Mortar made of Stone.

From among covering boulders of grave No. 42 (4) of adult in sand at the western edge of Columbia River about twelve miles above the head of Priest Rapids. 1/4 nat. size.]

_Mortars._ Mortars made of stone for crushing food, such as dried salmon, other meat and berries, were not uncommon in this region and pestles of the same material were numerous. Flat oval pebbles were found scattered on the surface of a village site on the west bank of the Columbia at the head of Priest Rapids, and were probably used as lap stones or as objects upon which to crush food. A somewhat circular one (202-8295) about 230 mm. in diameter has a notch, formed by chipping from one side, opposite one naturally water-worn, which suggests that it may have been used as a sinker; but it seems more likely that it was simply an anvil or lap stone. Similar pebbles were used in the Thompson River region,[80] some of them having indications of pecking or a slight pecked depression in the middle of one or both sides. In the Nez Perce region to the east, basketry funnels were used in connection with flat stones for mortars. These funnels were of rather crude coil technique.[81] Another specimen (202-8292b) found at the same place is merely a water-worn boulder somewhat thinner at one end than at the other, the surface of which apparently has been rubbed from use as a mortar or milling stone. A few large chips have been broken from the thinner edge. Still another specimen (202-8294) from here is a fragment of a pebble only 120 mm. in diameter with a saucer-shaped depression about 10 mm. deep, in the top.

[80] Smith, (d), p. 139.

[81] Cf. Spinden, p. 194.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 19. Mortar made of Stone. From the Yakima Reservation near Union Gap. 1/2 nat. size. (Drawn from photograph 44455, 2-4. Original in the collection of Mr. Janeck.)]

A somewhat disk-shaped pebble of gray lava 295 mm. in diameter with a saucer-shaped depression in the top and a large pecked pit in the bottom (20.0-3344) was collected at Fort Simcoe by Dr. H. J. Spinden. A fragment of a mortar about 190 mm. in diameter with a nearly flat or slightly convex base and a depression 50 mm. deep in the top (202-8293) was found on the surface near the head of Priest Rapids and another fragment nearly twice as large, the base of which is concave over most of its surface and shows marks of pecking, apparently the result of an attempt to make it either quite flat or concave like many other mortars that have a concavity in each side, is shown in Fig. 18. It was found among the covering boulders of the grave of an adult, No. 42(4), in the sand at the western edge of the Columbia River about twelve miles above the head of Priest Rapids. The mortar shown in Fig. 19, is hollowed in the top of a symmetrical, nearly circular pebble and has a convex base.

It was found on the Yakima Reservation near Union Gap and is in the collection of Mr. Janeck.[82] This reminds us of a similar mortar found in the Thompson River region,[83] but such simple mortars made from pebbles are rarely found in the Nez Perce region to the east.[84] The mortar shown in Fig. 20 also from the same place and in the same collection has a nearly flat base and three encircling grooves.[85]

These grooves find their counterpart in four encircling incisions on the little mortar found in the Thompson River region.[86]

[82] Museum negative no. 44455. 2-4.

[83] Smith, (c) Fig. 342.

[84] Spinden, Figs. 20 and 22, Plate VI.

[85] Museum negative no. 44455. 4-2.

[86] Smith, (c), Fig. 343.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 20. Mortar made of Stone. From the Yakima Reservation near Union Gap. 1/2 nat. size. (Drawn from photograph 44455, 2-4. Original in the collection of Mr. Janeck.)]

The specimen shown in Fig. 116, which may be considered as a dish rather than a mortar, was seen in the collection of Mrs. Hinman who obtained it from Priest Rapids. It is apparently of sandstone, 150 mm. in diameter, 50 mm. high, the upper part being 38 mm. high and of disk shape with slightly bulging sides which are decorated with incised lines,[87] the lower part being also roughly disk shaped 64 mm. by 76 mm. in diameter by about 12 mm. high with slightly convex bottom and edges curved out to the base of the upper part. There is a disk shaped dish in the top 100 mm. in diameter by 12 mm. in depth.[88]

[87] See p. 125.

[88] Museum negative no. 44537. 9-3.

The animal form shown in Fig. 125 bears a mortar or dish in its back.

The object is 203 mm. in length, 88 mm. high and 113 mm. wide. The length of the bowl is 88 mm., the width 70 mm., and the depth 38 mm. The object is made of porous lava and was secured from an Indian who claimed to have found it in a grave near Fort Simcoe on the Yakima Reservation two miles below Union Gap which is immediately below Old Yakima.[89]

[89] Here reproduced from photographs 44452, 2-1, 44455, 2-4, and 44503, 6-4 and the original which is catalogue no. 36 in the collection of Mr. Janeck.

It seems strange that so many of the mortars are broken since they would be hard to break. It will be remembered that one of the broken mortars came from a grave and it may be that the others were on or in graves but had been removed in some way. My general impression is that mortars are much more numerous among archaeological finds both in this region and in the interior of British Columbia than on the coast.

_Pestles._ In addition to the probable use of pestles with flat stones or mortars with basket funnels, some of them, especially where nearly flat or concave on the striking head as in the Thompson River region to the north and on the coast may also have been used as hammers for driving wedges, splitting wood and like industries, if indeed they were not made solely for the latter uses. Some of the pestles differ from those found either to the north or on the coast, many of them being much longer, although Mr. James Teit informs me that very long pestles are occasionally found in the Thompson River region. He has seen four, and heard of one or two more. One two feet long was found in the Nicola Valley about 1905. One of the pestles of the Yakima Valley has a top in the form of an animal hoof, as is shown in Fig. 124. Others like animal heads are shown in Figs. 31, 33-35. The range of forms of pestles is shown in Figs. 21 to 35. The specimens shown in Figs. 22 to 28 inclusive are apparently all of the shorter type, while those shown in the remaining figures are variations of the longer type. By far the greater number of pestles, about forty, are of the type shown in Fig. 21, and of these two thirds come from the vicinity of Priest Rapids. They are merely natural pebbles, all more or less of suitable size, shape and material, which have been used as pestles until one end has become flattened. Some of them are also flattened on the top, the battered ends often giving the only indication that they were used. Such as were not of exactly the right form for grasping have had their excrescences or the more projecting surfaces removed by pecking. A few of these objects seem to have been made from small basaltic columns, the corners of which have been pecked into a more suitable shape. Some of them have been pecked so that they taper gradually from the small upper end to the base. The specimen considered as a "slave-killer" and shown in Fig. 69, may have been used as a pestle. Simple short cylindrical or conoid pebbles, only slightly changed from their natural form, are used for pestles in the Nez Perce region to the east.[90]

[90] Cf. Spinden, Figs. 1-4, and 8, Plate VIII.

A pebble 559 mm. long by 152 mm. wide and 114 mm. thick, with rounded corners and ends, found by Mr. John Lacy near the Yakima River in North Yakima, has longitudinal grooves pecked in three sides to where they begin to round over to form the end, and a similar groove, except that it is only about 101 mm. long, in the middle of the fourth side.[91]

These grooves were probably made as part of a process of grooving and battering down the intervening ridges in order to bring the specimen into a desired form. Similarly grooved pebbles found on the northern part of Vancouver Island were explained to Professor Franz Boas as having been implements in such process of manufacture. So far as I am aware, Prof. Boas' announcement of this at a meeting of the American a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science was the first explanation of the sort of grooving or fluting of specimens found in northwestern America. One similar large specimen (20.0-3343) found at Lewiston, Idaho, in the Nez Perce region by Dr. H. J. Spinden, bears two longitudinally pecked grooves in addition to pecking on much of its surface. A yellowish gray boulder about 349 mm. long, nearly circular in sections and with rounded ends, from Priest Rapids, bears a pecked groove 82 mm. long by 31 mm. wide and 6 mm. deep across the middle of one side. This may have been made to cut it into the length desired for a pestle.[92] This specimen is much too large to be considered as the handle of a digging stick, similar to the object from the Nez Perce region considered as such by Spinden.[93]

[91] In the collection of Mr. Janeck and Museum negative nos. 44453, 2-2 and 44501, 6-2.

[92] In the collection of Mr. Mires, and Museum negative no. 44534, 8-12.

[93] Cf. Spinden, Plate VII, Fig. 33.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 21 (202-8281). Pestle made of Stone. From the surface, near the head of Priest Rapids. 1/2 nat. size.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 22 (202-8263). Pestle pecked from Stone. Probably unfinished. From the surface, near the head of Priest Rapids. 1/4 nat.

size.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 23 (202-8399). Pestle pecked from Stone. Probably unfinished. From the surface, eight miles above the head of Priest Rapids. 1/2 nat. size.]

The object shown in Fig. 22, one of those from the surface near the head of Priest Rapids, judging from the battered end, has apparently been used as a pestle, yet it is still apparently in process of manufacture into a form somewhat like that shown in Fig. 27. The pecking at the top is possibly the result of an attempt to remove that portion of the rock, while the transversely pecked surface seems to be a beginning towards the formation of the shaft of the pestle, whereas the longitudinal groove between these two surfaces was necessary to reduce an excrescence on the rim of what was apparently intended to be the k.n.o.b at the top of the pestle. If this supposition be true, when finished, this object would have a large striking head resembling more in shape and size those of the pestles of the region near The Dalles than any yet found in this region. The specimen shown in Fig. 23 is much more clearly an unfinished pestle. The ends are pecked flat and the entire middle section has been pecked, apparently to reduce it to the desired size of the shaft. It seems that the striking head of this specimen, when finished, would be rather short. It was found on the surface eight miles above the head of Priest Rapids.

The pestle shown in Fig. 24 has a conoid body with no striking head and in this respect resembles the pestles of the Thompson River country;[94]

but the top is roughly disk-shaped, being neither hat-shaped nor in the form of an animal head, as are most pestles of the Thompson region nor is it exactly of the shape of the typical pestles of northern and western Vancouver Island.[95] The material is a soft gray stone which shows the marks of the pecking by means of which it was shaped.

[94] Smith, (c), Fig. 341.

[95] Smith, (b), Fig. _126a_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 24. Pestle made of Stone. From Priest Rapids. 1/2 nat. size. (Drawn from photograph 44535, 9-1. Original in the collection of Mr. Mires.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 25. Pestle made of Stone. From Priest Rapids. 1/2 nat. size. (Drawn from photograph 44535, 9-1. Original in the collection of Mr. Mires.)]

Fig. 25 ill.u.s.trates a pestle, the top of which is broken off. There are two grooves encircling the somewhat cylindrical striking head. The material is a light blue hard porphoritic rock. These two specimens are from Priest Rapids.[96] The pestle shown in Fig. 26 is from the Yakima River, five miles below Old Yakima. It has a hat-shaped top and a cylindrical striking head a little larger at the top than at the bottom, is somewhat like the typical pestles of the Thompson River region,[97]

and is in the collection of Mr. York. Another has a slightly wider brim to the hat-shaped top, a body concave in outline and the striking head is larger at the top than at the bottom, while a third has a medium sized brim, a body bulging in the middle and a long cylindrical striking head. The last two specimens are in the collection of Mr. Janeck, and are from the Yakima Valley within eight miles of North Yakima.[98]

[96] In the collection of Mr. Mires, and Museum negative no. 44335, 9-1.

[97] Smith, (d), p. 138.