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Exploring the Early Americas The Jay I. Kislak Collection
Spatula Used for Purging (56)

Effigy bone purging spatula.
Greater Antilles. Taíno, AD 700–1500.
Carved manatee rib.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (56)
Photo ©Justin Kerr, Kerr Associates

Spatula Used for Purging 

This long, gracefully curved spatula was used for purging before taking the sacred trance-inducing cohoba, a powerful snuff of nicotine-rich tobacco. The earlobes and eye sockets once held inlays, perhaps of gold leaf or shell.