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Object Timeline

	We acquired this object.
-0001	We photographed this object.
2014	We exhibited this object.
2024	You found it!

Pestle (USA)

This is a pestle.

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It was able to spend time at the museum on loan from National Museum of Natural History as part of Tools: Extending Our Reach.

It is dated Before 1842. Its medium is carved basalt.

This unique pestle is a mystery. Some Hawaiians believe it to be for the final stage of preparing poi. This vegetable staple, made from the steamed, pounded, and slightly fermented corm of the kalo plant, constituted the principal nutriment in the Hawaiian diet. The handle of this finely polished black basalt pounder ends in a stylized head, identified by some as that of a mo`o, or lizard. Other Hawaiians hypothesize that this was a tool with which a kahuna lapa`au, or, a medical practitioner, would have pounded medicinal herbs. It weighs only 1.3 kg (2.8 lbs) and therefore seems more appropriate for pounding medicine than the very fibrous kalo. The tool was collected in Hawaii during the United States Exploring Expedition of 1840, the first United States expedition to circumnavigate the globe. The objects gathered in the course of the voyage formed the founding collections of the Smithsonian Institution.

It is credited Collected by the United States Exploring Expedition, 1840, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, E3513.