Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 9, 2025
The women, light-hearted hucksters, laugh and sing and chatter continuously. The tortillera, kneeling by her metate, bruises the boiled maize, claps it into thin flakes, flings it on the heated stone, and then cries, "Tortillas! tortillas calientes!"
Being an Indian she quite cheerfully went back to pounding acorns in a metate. In the fifth year of prosperity there drifted into camp two men, possessed of innocence, three mules, and a thousand dollars. They retained the mules; and, it is to be presumed, at least a portion of the innocence. The thousand dollars went to the purchase of the Lost Dog from Barney Fallan.
The metate for grinding or rubbing down the maize to be patted out into tortillas, a few calabashes for bottles, and pieces of calabashes for bowls and cups, prettily ornamented and painted, and hanging on pegs round the walls. A chimney is not necessary in houses which are like the Irishman's coat, consisting principally of holes.
In one grave there was found a metate reversed over a skeleton, probably that of a woman although the bones were so disintegrated that the determination of the sex of the individual was impossible.
A little earthen brazier for heating and cooking, a stone metate, a rubbing-stone for grinding corn-meal, a table heaped with bundles and boxes containing the family clothing, and a chair were all. There were no beds, not even the mats which so frequently, among the poor of Mexico, take their place.
Another olla, which contained maize already boiled soft was brought forward, and placed beside the "metate," or tortilla-stone; and then, by the help of an oblong roller also of stone a portion of the boiled maize was soon reduced to snow-white paste. The metate and roller were now laid aside, and the pretty, rose-coloured fingers of Rosita were thrust into the paste.
The upstairs is evidently the living-room; for the fireplace is here, and the pot is on. Off the living-room are corn and meal bins, and you can see the metate or stone on which the corn is ground by the women as in the days of Old Testament record.
Rhoda did not answer, but poured another handful of seed on the metate. "You'll begin to like the life," he went on, "by the time you are educated enough to leave us." He turned teasingly to Cesca. "You think the white squaw can cross the desert soon by herself?" Cesca spat disdainfully. "No! White squaw no good! All time sit, sit, no work! Kut-le heap fool!"
After crouching for a moment to see if the slight sounds had aroused him, I crept along the wall to where he sat. The stone pestle of the metate I had been forced to leave behind me, but I had the heavy barrel of my gun, and I was going to take no chances. I had no compunctions as to what I did to any one of this pack of mad dogs. Cautiously I drew it from its holster and poised it to strike.
On the other hand, there is abundance of dried corn in the caves, of gourds and squash seeds; and every cave has a metate, or grinding stone. In many of the caves, there are alcoves in the solid wall, where meal was stored; and of water jars, urns, ollas, there are remnants and whole pieces galore.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking