The Tongusy, inhabiting country eastward of the Lena, and who are the representatives of the ancient inhabitants of Siberia, rub two pieces of wood against each other to get fire when the tinder-box is not at hand.[1]
The Dacotah or Sioux Indians, Philander Prescott says, use the Australian method, and twirl the upright stick. A piece of punk is kept ready to apply to the charcoal-dust when ignited.[2]
Fire is procured by friction—when either their necessities or their superstitious observances require it—by all the tribes of America.
|
| FIG. 235. |
The usual mode of obtaining fire as practised by the Red Indians is shown in Fig. 235. A piece of wood placed perpendicularly to two other pieces of wood is made to revolve rapidly by moving a bow. Fire is soon got by this method. There is, however, a modification of this apparatus.
"At the sacrifice of the white dog, which was the New Year's festival and great jubilee of the Iroquois, the proceedings extended over six days. . . . The fire was kindled by swiftly revolving, by means of a bow and cord, an upright shaft of wood with a perforated stone attached to it as a fly-wheel. The lower point rested on a block of dry wood, surrounded by tinder, which was speedily ignited. This is the ordinary process still in use among many of the Indian tribes."[3]
Mr. Paul Kane gives the following account of the process employed by the Chinooks:—"The fire is obtained by means of a flat piece of dry cedar, in which a small hollow is cut with a channel for the ignited charcoal to run over; this piece the Indian sits on, to hold it steady, while he rapidly twirls a round stick of the same wood between the palms of his hands, with the point pressed into the hollow of the flat piece. In a very short time sparks begin to fall through the channel upon finely-frayed cedar bark placed underneath, which they soon ignite. There is a great deal of knack in doing this; but those who are used to it will light a fire in a very short time. The men usually carry these sticks about with them, as after they have been once used they produce the fire more quickly."[4]
The Aztecs and Peruvians used the fire-sticks very much in the same way as the natives of Australia use them. Great as these peoples were in arts, in arms, and in all that makes the difference between the savage who lives in the forest—scarcely as well sheltered as the birds—and the inhabitant of palaces—these peoples, in the height and fulness of their glory, cast back to the times when they too were wandering tribes; and they elevated into a religious festival the practice of an art which first raised them from a
