368
��AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST
��[n. s. f i, 1899
��gests, 1 it might be expected that it would not present so many differences from the pot pounders, and so many similarities to the three types of hammers described above and known to be old in America.
All the poi pounders that have thus far been brought to my attention, have very convex bases and no heads (figure 14). The bodies are slender, and always flare to meet the base with a very acute angle, forming an implement of bell shape. In this respect they resemble some Ohio and Kentucky pestles as much as they do those from Alaska. The handles resemble paddle- handles, but are much more graceful. A considerable variety of forms is found in certain groups of islands of the Pacific*
�����Fig. 11— Forms of hammers or pestles from the Hawaiian islands (?). a % No. S-5220 ; £, No. 8-5219 ; r, No. S-5221. (One-fourth nat.)
Although the surfaces of some of the Alaskan hammers are disintegrated, and appear very old, yet it will be important to note if this form is discovered, as the three mentioned types have been, under circumstances that prove it beyond dispute to have been made before contact with white people. It seems hardly credible that the vast number of these curiously handled speci- mens, each of which required much patient labor, should have been made within the short period since Russian colonization ; and we look forward with interest to more definite information on the subject.
1 American Anthropologist \ vol. XI, p. 382.
- Gill, Life in the Southern Isles, p. 204. Wilkes, Exploring Expedition, vol.
IV, p. 48. Finsch, Ethnologische Erfahrungen, pp. 206, 329.
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