The Tlinkit of British North America use these scratchers made of basalt or other stone. "The pipe-stem carrier (i.e., the carrier of the sacred or 'medicine' pipe) of the Crees, of British North America, dares not scratch his own head, without compromising his own dignity, without the intervention of a stick, which he always carries for that purpose."[201] Bancroft[202] quotes Walker as saying that "a Pima never touches his skin with his nails, but always with a small stick for that purpose, which he renews every fourth day and wears in his hair." As part of the ceremony of "initiating youth into manhood" among the Creeks, the young neophyte "during the twelve moons ... is also forbidden to pick his ears or scratch his head with his fingers, but must use a small splinter to perform these operations."[203] The Apache-Yuma men carry in their hair "a slender stick or bone about 8 inches long, which serves them as a comb."[204] The idea that these scratch sticks replace combs is an erroneous one; Indians make combs in a peculiar way of separate pieces of wood, and they are also very fond of brushing their long locks with the coarse brushes, which they make of sacaton or other grass. "One other regulation, mentioned by Schomburgk, is certainly quaint; the interesting father may not scratch himself with his finger nails, but may use for this purpose a splinter, especially provided, from the mid-rib of a cokerite palm."[205] When a Greenlander is about to enter into conversation with the spirits "no one must stir, not so much as to scratch his head."[206] In the New Hebrides most of the natives "wear a thin stick or reed, about 9 inches long, in their hair, with which they occasionally disturb the vermin that abound in their heads."[207] Alarcon, describing the tribes met on the Rio Colorado, in 1541, says: "They weare certaine pieces of Deeres bones fastened to their armes, wherewith they strike off the sweate."[208] In German folk-lore there are many references to the practice in which the giants indulged frequently in scratching themselves, sometimes as a signal to each other. Just what significance to attach to these stories I can not presume to say, as Grimm merely relates the fact without comment.[209] Of the Abyssinians, Bruce says: "Their hair is short and curled like that of a negro's in the west part of Africa, but this is done by art not by nature, each man having a wooden stick with which he lays hold of the lock and twists it round like a screw till it curls in the form he desires."[210] In a footnote, he adds: "I apprehend this is the same instrument used by the ancients, and censured by the prophets, which in our translation is rendered crisping-pins." Possibly the constant use of the scratch stick in countries without wood suggested that it should be carried in the hair, and hence it would originate the fashion of wearing the hair crimped round it, and after a while it would itself be used as a crimping-pin.