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Kneeling down upon the ground, she placed her corn, or Chili peppers or whatever article she wished to grind upon the stone; and, taking the hand-stone, she rolled it vigorously back and forth over the flat surface, crushing up the material, which fell off at the lower end into a dish below.
A handful of broken quartz is placed upon the 'cankey-stone, with which the gudewife grinds her 'mealies. It is a slightly hollowed slab of granite or hard conglomerate, some two feet square, sloping away from the worker, and standing upon a rude tripod of tree-branches secured by a lashing of 'tie-tie. The stuff is then rubbed with a hand-stone not unlike a baker's roll, and a slight deviation is given to it as it moves 'fore and aft. The reduced stone is caught in a calabash placed at the lower end of the slab.
They were taught to hurl spears at a mark; to train war-horses and guide war-chariots; to lay on with the sword and defend themselves with sword and shield; to cast the hand-stone of the warrior a great art in those days; to run, to leap, and to swim; to rear tents of turf and branches swiftly, and to roof them with sedge and rushes; to speak appropriately with equals and superiors and inferiors, and to exhibit the beautiful practices of hospitality according to the rank of guests, whether kings, captains, warriors, bards or professional men, or unknown wayfarers; and to play at chess and draughts, which were the chief social pastimes of the age; and to drink and be merry in hall, but always without intoxication; and to respect their plighted word and be ever loyal to their captains; to reverence women, remembering always those who bore them and suckled when they were themselves helpless and of no account; to be kind to the feeble and unwarlike; and, in short, all that it became brave men to feel and to think and to do in war and in peace.
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