A rather novel use of shells by the ancient Indians is mentioned by
early writers. The two valves of small mussels or clams were made to do
service as tweezers for pulling out their hair.
Adair, speaking of the Choctaws, says that "both sexes pluck all the
hair off their bodies with a kind of tweezers, made formerly of clam
shells."[51] Strachey states that shells were used by the Virginian
Indians for cutting hair. Beverly says of the Virginia Indians that they
"pull their Beards up by the Roots with Muscle-shells, and both Men and
Women do the same by the other Parts of their Body for Cleanliness
sake."[52] Heckewelder states that "Before the Europeans came into the
country their apparatus for performing this work consisted of a pair of
mussel-shells, sharpened on a gritty stone, which answered the purpose
very well, being somewhat like pincers."[53]
Fig. 5, Plate XXVII, reproduced from a plate in the Necropolis of
Ancon[54] represents two small _Mytilus_ shells pierced at the beak and
bound together with a cord. They were found in one of the ancient graves
of Peru, and may have been used for a similar purpose.