In an ancient grave excavated not far from Salem, Massachusetts, in 1873, were found five skeletons, one of which was supposed to be that of the chief Nanephasemet, who was killed in 1605 or 1606. He was the king of Namkeak. On the breast of this skeleton were discovered "several small copper tubes ... from 4 to 8 inches in length, and from one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch in diameter, made of copper rolled up, with the edges lapped."[221]
Alarcon relates that the tribes seen on the Rio Colorado by him in 1541, wore on one arm "certain small pipes of cane." But the object or purpose of wearing these is not indicated.[222]
The natives of the Friendly Islands carried in their ears little cylinders of reed, although we learn that these were "filled with a red solid substance."[223] Among the Narrinyeri of Australia, when young men are to be initiated into the rank of warriors, during the ceremonies "they are allowed to drink water, but only by sucking it up through a reed."[224] Admiral von Wrangel says of the Tchuktchi of Siberia: "They suck their broth through a small tube of reindeer bone," which "each individual carries about with him."[225] Padre Sahagun says that the human victim whom the Aztecs offered up in sacrifice was not allowed to touch water with his lips, but had to "suck it through a reed."[226]
"The Mexicans had a forty-days' fast in memory of one of their sacred persons who was tempted forty days on a mountain. He drinks through a reed. He is called the Morning Star."[227] The Mexicans, according to Fray Diego Duran, placed before the statues of their dead bowls of "vino," with "rosas," tobacco (this seems to be the proper translation of the word "humazos," smokes), and a reed called the "drinker of the sun," through which the spirit could imbibe.[228]
"The suction pipes of steatite," mentioned by Schoolcraft, as found in the mounds, may have been the equivalents of our drinking reeds, and made of steatite to be the more readily preserved in the ritual of which they formed part.
Copper cylinders 1¼ inches long and ⅜ of an inch in diameter were found in the mounds of the Mississippi Valley by Squier and Davis. The conjecture that they had been used "for ornaments" does not seem warranted.[229]
We should not forget that there was a semideification of the reed itself by the Aztec in their assignment of it to a place in their calendar under the name of "acatl."[230]
Mrs. Ellen Russell Emerson speaks of the custom the warriors of the northern tribes had which suggests that she had heard of the drinking reed without exactly understanding what it meant. She says that warriors carry bowls of birch bark "from one side of which the warrior drinks in going to battle—from the other, on his return. These bowls are not carried home, but left on the prairie, or suspended from trees within a day's journey of his village."[231]
Among the Brahmans practices based upon somewhat similar ideas are to be found: every morning, upon rising, "ils prennent trois fois de l'eau dans la main, & en jettent trois fois dans leur bouche, évitant d'y toucher avec la main."[232]