V.
THE PHALLUS IN CALIFORNIA.
SEX worship being the most natural, the most personal or self-relating, and ever associated with physical maturity, we may safely conclude it to have had spontaneous origin in widely separated localities. As it arose in India it may have likewise arisen elsewhere. At all events, we believe India and the East are not the only places where the vestiges of it are found. There is reason to think the aboriginal people of California had phallic and yonigic usages, if those usages did not amount to a religious faith. In support of this view several stone relics of antiquity give evidence, if it be proper to base a conclusion upon the study of a few specimens.
Fig 25. |
inspect was a stone phallus I obtained on the Big Solado Creek in the foot-hills of Stanislaus County, California. It is cylindrical in shape, nearly sixteen inches long, and two and a quarter inches in diameter. The second one is represented in the cut, Fig. 25. It is formed of basaltic rock, is eighteen inches in length, and two and one fourth inches in diameter at the largest part. These are commonly called "Indian pestles." But this appears to be a swift and too easy conclusion. To be so carefully wrought out of obdurate rock for the object of pestles implies a poor adaptation to the supposed use. It elevates the autochthon's constructive above his applied skill. These phalli show no marks of wear, the larger ends having the same appearance of disuse as the smaller. A specific feature denoting weighty proof that our specimens are sexual emblems of the male organ cannot be overlooked. Near the summit of the lesser end of Fig. 25 is a well-defined depressed line which typifies the adult uncircumcised prepuce, in semi-recession upon the glands.
C. C. Jones ("Antiquities of Southern Indians") says: "The worship of Priapus probably obtained among some of the Southern Indian nations. In the collection of Dr. Troost were many carefully carved representations in stone of the male organ of generation."
Another point worthy of note is the fact that the length of the so-called pestles exceeds that of nearly every other celt, as figured by Lubbock, Evans, or Jones.
Fig. 26. |
Fig. 26 is a unique specimen, the original of which accompanied Fig. 25. They are both in the collection of the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Cal., but without history except such as may be read from each as an individual fact. This oval-shaped relic has been denominated a "mortar." But that term seems a misnomer. The object departs from the type of the mortar. Other vessels in the collection that are unquestioned mortars have a less elaborate finish, and all strictly conform to the one idea of rough utility. This specimen (Fig. 26) is fourteen inches long, nine inches broad, and six inches high. It is not polished, but it has all even smoothness on the outer surface. The oblong cavity, which is nearly three inches deep, allows quite sharp pits
Though the direct evidence is small, the foregoing indirect evidence leads us to regard the relic purely a sacred emblem of the female type, answering to the yoni of India, and a companion to the phallus.
