Chaw'se

Chaw'se. The Grinding Rock. Chaw’se is the Miwok word for a mortar hole. The cup-shaped depression in a grinding rock was used to process acorns and other seeds into food by pounding and grinding with a cobblestone pestle. , The hole or chaw’se began as a slight natural depression in the rock that became deeper through years of use. The deep mortar holes were used when the objective was to crack the shells of seeds without crushing the meats. Shallow depressions were used for acorn grinding and when a chaw’se became too deep, a new one was started a few inches or a few feet away. , The great outcropping of marbleized limestone, with some 1,185 grinding its, is the largest occurrence of bedrock mortars in North America! Large grinding rocks were used by all the women of a village and served as the community milling place or outdoor kitchen. The women could tell stories, socialize and work at the same time. , Listen closely, the great rock still echoes the pounding of acorns and the stories handed down from generation to generation. “A long time ago Oo-soo’ma-te the Grizzly Bear and Hoi-yah’ko the first people made the chaw’se mortar holes in the big flat-topped rocks. Then Nek-na-ka’tah the rock maiden helped make the stone pestles for grinding acorns ....”