ing it between the hands, each one catching it in turn from the others without allowing the motion to stop until smoke, and at last a spark of fire is seen and caught in a piece of spunk, when there is great rejoicing in the crowd."[1] The desperate exertion was not necessary, except in imitation of the Zuñi fashion of wetting the drill to create sacred fire.
It will be seen from these references given that the Sioux used the customary Indian method. Later, they may have used the bow to expedite the drill when the wood was intractable. The bow may have been borrowed from more northern tribes, the Algonquians are said to use it;[2] Mr. Thomas C. Battey says that the Sac-Fox Indians (Algonquian stock) used a soft wood drill and a hard wood hearth. "The drill was worked by a bow and the fire caught on the end of the drill and touched to tinder."
Throughout South America the art of fire-making with two sticks of wood is found to be as thoroughly diffused as it is in North America. Many of the tribes still use it; we may say that in all tribes the use of flint and steel was preceded by that of the sticks of wood.
The Guanchos, a mixed tribe of herders on the Pampas of Venezuela, practice a peculiar way of fire-getting. They select a pliant rod, place one end against the breast and the other against the block forming the hearth, held on a line with the breast. By pressing against the rod it is bent and turned rapidly around like an auger. This impracticable and no doubt very local method is described by Prof. E. B. Tylor.[3]
In Brazil, in the Province of Goyaz, the Ohavantes, Cayapos, and Angaytés, use the simple fire drill.[4] The Angaytés drill figured looks somewhat like that of the Mokis. It is usually 28cm. long for the hearth, and for the drill 20cm. They use the throat skin of the Nandu, Rhea Americana, for a tinder sack. The Lenguas of the same province use a strike a-light consisting of a tinder horn, flint, and steel, which is also figured in the cited report. This set is very interesting, because from it we can say with certainty where the Lengua got it. The steel is the English "flourish," and the flint is the oval, old English shape, probably broken somewhat by blows. The Lenguas, being on the line of travel, have adopted the method from English traders. In Rio Janeiro the Indians had an angular recess at the back of their snuff mills for the purpose of making fire by friction.[5]
The Ainos of Japan formerly used fire-sticks, and are said even yet to resort to this method when they have no other means of getting fire. They use also flint and steel, adopted from the Japanese. A specimen (No. 22257) is figured and described on page 583 of this paper. The fire-
- ↑ Smithsonian Report. 1885. ii, p. 315.
- ↑ Sir Daniel Wilson.—Prehistoric Man. ii, p. 375.
- ↑ Darwin.—Narrative of the voyage of the Beagle, iii, p. 458. Cited in Early History of Mankind, p. 241.
- ↑ Dr. Emil Hassler.—In Jahrbuch Mittelschweiz. Comnierciel. Gesellsch. Aran, Zweiter Band. 1888. 114, 115.
- ↑ Harper's Monthly Magazine. Nov. 1853. vii, p. 745.
