"0I.ME8.J DRINKING AND FOOD VESSELS. 193 



out of cocoas and natural shells richly set with jewels." Other authors 

 make similar statements. (Jlavigero says that "beautiful sea-shells or 

 natui-ally formed vessels, curiously varuislied, were used." In many of 

 tlie periodical feasts of the Florida Indians shells were in high favor, 

 ;ind it is related how at a certain stage of one of the dances two men 

 came in, each bearing very large conch-shells full of black drink, whi( li 

 was an infusion of the young leaves of the cassine (probably Ilex (Jas- - 

 sine, L.). After prolonged ceremonies, this drink was offered to the 

 king, to the whites present, and then to the entire assembly.' It is a re- 

 markable fact that a similar custom has been noticed among the Moquis 

 of Arizona. Lieutenant Bourke witnessed the snake dance of that tribe 

 a few years ago, and states that in front of the altar containing the 

 snakes was a covered earthen vessel, which contained four large sea- 

 shells and a liquid of some unknown composition, of which the men 

 who handled the snakes freely dra^^K. Vessels thus associated with 

 important ceremonial customs of savages would naturally be of first 

 importance in their sepulchral rites. De Bry, in the remarkable plates 

 of his " Brevis Narratio," furuishes two instances of such use. Plate 19 

 shows a procession of nude females who scatter locks of their hair upon 

 a row of graves, on each of which has been placed a large univalve 

 shell, probably containing food or drink for the dead, and in Plate 40 

 we have another illustration of this custom, the shell being placed on 

 the heap of earth raised above the grave of a departed chieftain. lu 

 Plate XXI, Fig. 1, an outline of the shell represented is given ; it re- 

 sembles most nearly the pearly nautilus, but, being drawn by the artist 

 from memory or description, we are at liberty to suppose the shell actu- 

 ally used was a large Busycon from the neighboring coast, probablj"^ 

 more or less altered by art. Haywood, Hakluyt, Tonti, Bartram, Adair, 

 and others mention the use of shells for drinking vessels, and in much 

 more recent times Indians are known to have put them to a similar use. 

 On account of the rapidity with which they decay, we can know noth- 

 ing of surface deposits of shells by prehistoric or even by comparatively 

 recent peoples. It is only through the custom of burying valued articles 

 with the dead that any of these relics are preserved to us. When we 

 consider the quantity of such objects necessarily destroyed by time, 

 exposure, and use, we marvel at the vast numbers that must have been, 

 within a limited period of years, carried inland. In the more recent 

 mounds there may be found specimens obtained by the Indians through 

 the agency of white traders, but the vast majority were derived doubt- 

 less from purely aboriginal sources. Many instances could be cited to 

 show that the whites have engaged iu the trade in shells. Kohl, in 

 speaking of early trade with the Ojibways of Lake Superior, states that 

 when the traders "exhibited a fine large shell and held it to the ears of 

 the Indians, these latter were astonished, saying they heard the roaring 



'De Bry : Collectio Pars 2. Brevis Narratio, 1591, Plato 29. 

 13 E 



