BOURKE.] THE DRINKING REED. 495 
substance.”' 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.”? 
Admiral you Wrangel says of the Tehuktchi of Siberia: “They suck 
their broth through a small tube of reindeer bone,” which ‘ each indi- 
vidual carries about with him.”* 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.” * 
“The Mexicans had a forty-days’ fastin memory of one of their sacred 
persons who was tempted forty days ona mountain. He drinks through 
areed. He is called the Morning Star.”> 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. ° 
“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 14 inches long and 2 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.’ 
We should not forget that there was a semideification of the reed 
itself by the Aztecin their assignment of it to a place in their calendar 
under the name of ‘acatl.” ° 
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 withoutexactly understanding whatitmeant. Shesays 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.” ® 
Amoug the Brahmans practices based upon somewhat similar ideas 
are to be found: every morning, upon rising, ‘ils prennent trois fois de 
Veau dans la main, & en jettent trois fois dans leur bouche, évitant d’y 
toucher avee la main.” !° 
' Forster, Voyage Round the World, vol. 1, p. 435. 
2Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1. p. 66. 
3 English edition, New York, 1842, p. 271. 
4 Kingsborough, vol. 6, p. 100. 
5 Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. 2, book 1, cap. 4, sec. 9, p. 31. 
6Y ponia delante un canuto grande y queso [grueso?] para con que bebiese: este canuto llamaban 
“*bebedero del Sol.'’—Diego Duran, vol. 1, cap. 38, p. 386. 
7 Smithsonian Contributions, vol. 1. p. 151. 
®The reed, which is the proper meaning of the word ‘‘acatl,”’ is the hieroglyphic of the element 
water. Veytia, quoted by Thomas, in 3rd Ann. Rep., Bu. Eth.. 1881-1882, p. 42 et seq. 
*Indian Myths, Boston, 1884, p. 260. 
10 Picart, Cérémonies et Cofittumes Réligieuses de tons les Peuples du Monde, Amsterdam, 1736, 
vol. 6, part 2, p. 103 
