Morteros Memories

Among the food preparation sites associated with tribal villages and camps, the bowl-like mortero, `ehmuu in Kumeyaay, was the most enduring. Sites like this one were natural kitchens, where Kumeyaay women used shallow depressions in granite bedrock hour by hour to grind foods and medicines. Their labor remained visible in bedrock smoothed by repetitive motion, as rock struck rock again and again while women hunched over to grind, mash, and roll in a steady, almost musical rhythm.

California · United States