Those are molcajetes: traditional mortars (the actual bowls) and pestles (the clubs.) They are typically made of basalt and used to grind chilies, etc, to make salsa.
Unfortunately, although "molcajete" means "grinding bowl" in the Nahuatl language, it also seems to be the term of choice for all legged shallow pottery bowls from Mesoamerica, even if the bowl is not a grinding bowl. This annoys my wife: over the second course at Le Bernardin, she mentions that people need to get an ethnoarcheologist to show the bowl around Oaxaca villages, asking people what is really called.
I'm pretty sure the pottery bowl I have was never designed for grinding food. In fact, I'm pretty sure almost none of the pottery molcajetes were designed for grinding. Naturally, I am pointed to a counterexample:
But most are not grinding bowls. Here's candidate number 3:
It's sitting in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
Oh, and those bulbous legs are called "mammiform." Which just means breast-shaped. That concludes today's lesson.
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