order of Baisingar Khan, grandson of Timur-i-Leng (Timur), is rejected by modern scholars (see T. Nöldeke, “Das iranische Nationalepos,” in W. Geiger’s Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, ii. pp. 150-158).
The Shāhnāma is based, as we have seen, upon the ancient legends current among the populace of Persia, and collected by the Dihkans, a class of men who had the greatest facilities for this purpose. There is every reason therefore to believe that Firdousī adhered faithfully to these records of antiquity, and that the poem is a perfect storehouse of the genuine traditions of the country.
The entire poem (which only existed in MS. up to the beginning of the 19th century) was published (1831–1868) with a French translation in a magnificent folio edition, at the expense of the French government, by the learned and indefatigable Julius von Mohl. The size and number of the volumes, however, and their great expense, made them difficult of access, and Frau von Mohl published the French translation (1876–1878) with her illustrious husband’s critical notes and introduction in a more convenient and cheaper form. Other editions are by Turner Macan (Calcutta, 1829), J. A. Vullers and S. Landauer (unfinished; Leiden, 1877–1883). There is an English abridgment by J. Atkinson (London, 1832; reprinted 1886, 1892); there is a verse-translation, partly rhymed and partly unrhymed, by A. G. and E. Warner (1905 foll.), with an introduction containing an account of Firdousī and the Shāhnāma; the version by A. Rogers (1907) contains the greater part of the work. The episode of Sohrab and Rustam is well known to English readers from Matthew Arnold’s poem. The only complete translation is Il Libro dei Rei, by I. Pizzi (8 vols., Turin, 1886–1888), also the author of a history of Persian poetry.
See also E. G. Browne’s Literary History of Persia, i., ii. (1902–1906); T. Nöldeke (as above) for a full account of the Shāhnāma, editions, &c.; and H. Ethé, “Neupersische Litteratur,” in the same work. (E. H. P.; X.)
FIRE (in O. Eng. fýr; the word is common to West German languages, cf. Dutch vuur, Ger. Feuer; the pre-Teutonic form is seen in Sanskrit pū, pāvaka, and Gr. πῦρ; the ultimate origin is usually taken to be a root meaning to purify, cf. Lat. purus), the term commonly used for the visible effect of combustion (see Flame), operating as a heating or lighting agency.
So general is the knowledge of fire and its uses that it is a question whether we have any authentic instance on record of a tribe altogether ignorant of them. A few notices indeed are to be found in the voluminous literature of travel which would decide the question in the affirmative; but when they are carefully investigated, their evidence is found to be far from conclusive. The missionary Krapf was told by a slave of a tribe in the southern part of Shoa who lived like monkeys in the bamboo jungles, and were totally ignorant of fire; but no better authority has been found for the statement, and the story, which seems to be current in eastern Africa, may be nothing else than the propagation of fables about the Pygmies whom the ancients located around the sources of the Nile. Lieut. Charles Wilkes, commander of the United States exploring expedition of 1838–42, says that in Fakaafo or Bowditch Island “there was no sign of places for cooking nor any appearance of fire,” and that the natives felt evident alarm at the sparks produced by flint and steel and the smoke emitted by those with cigars in their mouths. The presence of the word afi, fire, in the Fakaafo vocabulary supplied by Hale the ethnographer of the expedition, though it might perhaps be explained as equivalent only to solar light and heat, undoubtedly invalidates the supposition of Wilkes; and the Rev. George Turner, in an account of a missionary voyage in 1859, not only repeats the word afi in his list for Fakaafo, but relates the native legend about the origin of fire, and describes some peculiar customs connected with its use. Alvaro de Saavedra, an old Spanish traveller, informs us that the inhabitants of Los Jardines, an island of the Pacific, showed great fear when they saw fire—which they did not know before. But that island has not been identified with certainty by modern explorers. It belongs, perhaps, to the Ladrones or Marianas Archipelago, where fire was unknown, says Padre Gobien, “till Magellan, wroth at the pilferings of the inhabitants, burnt one of their villages. When they saw their wooden huts ablaze, their first thought was that fire was a beast which eats up wood. Some of them having approached the fire too near were burnt, and the others kept aloof, fearing to be torn or poisoned by the powerful breath of that terrible animal.” To this Freycinet objects that these Ladrone islanders made pottery before the arrival of Europeans, that they had words expressing the ideas of flame, fire, oven, coals, roasting and cooking. Let us add that in their country numerous graves and ruins have been found, which seem to be remnants of a former culture. Thus the question remains in uncertainty: though there is nothing impossible in the supposition of the existence of a fireless tribe, it cannot be said that such a tribe has been discovered.
It is useless to inquire in what way man first discovered that fire was subject to his control, and could even be called into being by appropriate means. With the natural phenomenon and its various aspects he must soon have become familiar. The volcano lit up the darkness of night and sent its ashes or its lava down into the plains; the lightning or the meteor struck the tree, and the forest was ablaze; or some less obvious cause produced some less extensive ignition. For a time it is possible that the grand manifestations of nature aroused no feelings save awe and terror; but man is quite as much endowed with curiosity as with reverence or caution, and familiarity must ere long have bred confidence if not contempt. It is by no means necessary to suppose that the practical discovery of fire was made only at one given spot and in one given way; it is much more probable indeed that different tribes and races obtained the knowledge in a variety of ways.
It has been asserted of many tribes that they would be unable to rekindle their fires if they were allowed to die out. Travellers in Australia and Tasmania depict the typical native woman bearing always about with her a burning brand, which it is one of her principal duties to protect and foster; and it has been supposed that it was only ignorance which imposed on her the endless task. This is absurd. The Australian methods of producing fire by the friction of two pieces of wood are perfectly well known, and are illustrated in Howitt’s Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 771-773. To carry a brand saves a little trouble to the men.
The methods employed for producing fire vary considerably in detail, but are for the most part merely modified applications of concussion or friction. Lord Avebury has remarked that the working up of stone into implements must have been followed sooner or later by the discovery of fire; for in the process of chipping sparks were elicited, and in the process of polishing heat was generated. The first or concussion method is still familiar in the flint and steel, which has hardly passed out of use even in the most civilized countries. Its modifications are comparatively few and unimportant. The Alaskans and Aleutians take two pieces of quartz, rub them well with native sulphur, strike them together till the sulphur catches fire, and then transfer the flame to a heap of dry grass over which a few feathers have been scattered. Instead of two pieces of quartz the Eskimos use a piece of quartz and a piece of iron pyrites. Mr Frederick Boyle saw fire produced by striking broken china violently against a bamboo, and Bastian observed the same process in Burma, and Wallace in Ternate. In Cochin China two pieces of bamboo are considered sufficient, the silicious character of the outside layer rendering it as good as native flint. The friction methods are more various. One of the simplest is what E. B. Tylor calls the stick and groove—“a blunt pointed stick being run along a groove of its own making in a piece of wood lying on the ground.” Much, of course, depends on the quality of the woods and the expertness of the manipulator. In Tahiti Charles Darwin saw a native produce fire in a few seconds, but only succeeded himself after much labour. The same device was employed in New Zealand, the Sandwich Islands, Tonga, Samoa and the Radak Islands. Instead of rubbing the movable stick backwards and forwards other tribes make it rotate rapidly in a round hole in the stationary piece of wood—thus making what Tylor has happily designated a fire-drill. This device has been observed in Australia, Kamchatka, Sumatra and the Carolines, among the Veddahs of Ceylon, throughout a great part of southern Africa, among the Eskimo and Indian tribes of North America, in the West Indies, in Central America, and as far south as the Straits of Magellan. It was also employed by the ancient Mexicans, and
