Chapter I: Fire-Making by Reciprocating Motion (1)

1. SIMPLE TWO-STICK APPARATUS.

This method may be said to have a world-wide distribution, and to have had no narrow range in time. It is a very interesting study to observe the many different practices that have been superadded to the simple task of twirling two sticks with the design of creating fire. It is also instructive to note how fixed have become tribal characters in so small a thing as the shaping of the elements of the fire drill. It has well been said by Dr. Schweinfurth, that—

A people, as long as they are on the lowest step of their development,
are far better characterized by their industrial products than they
are either by their habits, which may be purely local, or by their own
representations, which (rendered in their rude and unformed language)
are often incorrectly interpreted by ourselves. If we possessed more
of these tokens we should be in a position to comprehend better than
we do the primitive condition of many a nation that has now reached a
high degree of culture.[2]

This fact holds good with reference to tribes in a higher plane than the learned writer included in this statement, in this way. There are many little things that have not been subject to the modification of time, intercourse, or environment, but co-exist with an art. To particularize: Prof. E. S. Morse has shown the value of the simple act of releasing an arrow from a bow-string as a classifier. Close attention to the minor acts and arts will reveal much more than the nice measurements of man’s practically unmodified skeleton.

Differences that have become functional in the arts have come down from an early period; when they can be found they are of the greatest value as aids in ethnology.

The ethnography of the simple fire drill is studied geographically, beginning in North America with the most northerly tribes that use it, and ranging from north to south in the different sections of the country, among the tribes from which there are specimens in the Museum. Other countries are examined from west to east.

The Sitkan fire-drill spindle is unusually long and thick (fig. 1). Both hearth and drills are of the _Thuja gigantea_, a tree that enters so largely into the life of the Indians along this coast. The wood grinds off very well with much friction; at ordinary speed there is soon a small heap of powder at the bottom of the fire slot. The latter is deeply cut in from the side nearly to the center of the fire-hole. The whole hearth has been charred at the fire. This repels moisture, and also renders it easier to ignite the wood, charring being a process somewhat analogous to the decay of wood by rotting. If kept carefully in a dry place, this apparatus was perfectly adequate for the purpose of the Sitkan, and in his skillful hands would no doubt give the spark in a minute or so. The long drill would indicate that two worked at it consecutively to keep up a continuous motion, as will be noted in the use of the Aino drill (p. 551).

For tinder, the bark of the arbor vitæ was used. It is finely frayed, and is much improved by being slightly charred. They also use, preferably, a tinder made from a fungus, because it is “quicker,” _i. e._, ignites more readily than the frayed bark.

The hearth is squared and measures 23 inches; the drill is of equal length.

Going southward from Sitka the next fire-making set in the series is from Bella-Bella, British Columbia. These Indians are of the Salishan stock, and are called Bilhulas. The horizontal is a piece of cedar wood dressed square on three faces. It is apparently a piece of an oar or spear handle. The fire holes are shallow, and the fire slots are quite narrow (fig. 2). The drills have been scored longitudinally near the rubbing end; this may be a device to cause the wood to wear away more rapidly, and furnish fuel to the incipient fire. Fire has evidently been made with this set. Both parts are 1½ feet long; the drill is much thinner than that of Sitka. The tinder is of frayed cedar bark.

From a southern family of the Salishan stock, called the Quinaielt Indians, of Washington Territory, the museum has a complete set collected by the late Charles Willoughby. It consists of a hearth, two drills, and a slow-match. The hearth is a rounded piece of cedar wood; opposite the fire-holes it is dressed flat, so as to rest firmly on the ground. There are three fire-holes with wide notches. The drills taper to each end, that is, are larger in the middle (fig. 3). The powder, a fine brown dust, collects at the junction of the slot and fire-hole, where they form a lip and there readily ignites. This side of the hearth is semi-decayed. No doubt the slots were cut in that side for the purpose of utilizing this quality. The drills are bulged toward the middle, thereby rendering it possible to give great pressure and at the same time rapid rotation without allowing the hands to slip down too rapidly, a fault in many fire-drills. The slow-match is of frayed cedar bark, about a yard long, folded squarely together, and used section by section. Mr. Willoughby says:

The stick with three cavities was placed upon the ground, the Indian
kneeling and placing a knee upon each end. He placed one end of the
smaller stick in one of the cavities, and, holding the other end
between the palms of his hands, kept up a rapid half-rotary motion,
causing an amount of friction sufficient to produce fire. With this he
lighted the end of the braided slow-match of cedar bark. This was
often carried for weeks thus ignited and held carefully beneath the
blanket to protect it from wind and rain.

Fire is easily procured with this set. It takes but a slight effort to cause a wreath of aromatic smoke to curl up, and the friction easily grinds off a dark powder, which collects between the edges of the slot. When this ignites it drops down the slot in a little pellet, and falls upon the tinder placed below to receive it. Both drill and hearth are 18 inches long.

The Klamaths, of Oregon, of the Lutuamian stock, use a fire apparatus that looks very much like that of the Utes. The hearth is a rounded piece of soft wood thinned down at the ends (fig. 4). The drill is a long, round arrow-stick, with a hard-wood point set in with resin and served with sinew (see Ute drill, fig. 7). The holes in this hearth are very small, being less than three-eighths of an inch in diameter. They are in the center, and the fire slot being cut into the rounded edge widens out below, so that the coal can drop down and get draught. The wood is quite soft, apparently being sap-wood of yew or cedar, while the drill-point is of the hardest wood obtainable. It is probable that sand is used on the drill. The hearth is 13 inches long, and the drill 26.

The Chinooks, a tribe of Indians of a separate stock, called Chinookan, formerly lived about the mouth of the Columbia River, in Oregon, but are now nearly extinct. Hon. James G. Swan, the veteran explorer, investigator, and collector among the Northwest coast tribes, says that the Chinooks are the best wet-weather fire-makers he ever knew.[3]

To kindle a fire the Chinook twirls rapidly between the palms a cedar
stick, the point of which is pressed into a small hollow in a flat
piece of the same material, the sparks falling on finely frayed bark.
Sticks are commonly carried for the purpose, improving with use.[4]

Mr. Paul Kane[5] describes the hearth as a “flat piece of dry cedar, in which a small hollow is cut with a channel for the ignited charcoal to run over. In a short time sparks begin to fall through the channel upon finely frayed cedar bark placed underneath, which they soon ignite.” The Ahts and Haidas also use cedar fire-sticks of the usual Indian kind.

The Hupa Indians of California are of the Athapascan stock. Their fire-drill is a carefully made piece of apparatus (fig. 5). The hearth is of a reddish, punky piece, probably of mesquite, _Prosopis juliflora_, somewhat harder than the drill, which is charred slightly for some distance along the grinding end. Fire has been made in one of the holes; the others show the rough, frayed cavities which have been made to start the drill. The notches at each end of the hearth seem to be to facilitate the tying of the pieces together as a precaution to prevent their loss or separation. They are usually intrusted into the hands of the most skillful fire-maker, who wraps them up to keep them from becoming damp. The effectiveness of the sticks increases with use and age; a stick and hearth that have been charred by the former making of fire in most cases yields the spark in half the time required for new apparatus. Another advantage is that the drill is softer from incipient decay.

That this set is in the highest degree efficient is shown by the fact that the writer repeatedly got a glowing coal, the size of a pea, from it in less than twenty seconds. The hearth is 18 and the drill 21 inches long.

The McCloud River Indians (Copehan stock) make the drill from the buckeye tree.

The Indians of Washoe, Nevada, from their language, have been classed by the Bureau of Ethnology as a separate stock, the Washoan. Stephen Powers, many years ago collected a rather remarkable hearth from these Indians. It has eight rather small holes, in every one of which fire has been made. The wood is soft, well-seasoned pine. Apparently sand has been made use of to get greater friction, as is the custom of the Zuñis and Apaches. This device, in a measure, obviates the necessity of having tinder-like wood, or wood in a state of partial decay. For the drill any hardwood cylindrical stick might be employed. A strip of buckskin about an inch wide is passed around the hearth over the fire holes to keep them dry (fig. 6).

At the end of the hearth is a mass of cement made of the resin of a pine mixed with sand, apparently; a kind of material used by the Indians over a large area in the Great Basin and southward to fix their arrowheads, pitch the water-bottles, and for other purposes. It is quite probable that this stick was the property of an arrow-maker, whose need of fire to melt the somewhat intractable cement, caused him to combine these functions in one tool.

It has a better finish, and displays greater skill in its manufacture than the fire-tools of the neighboring tribes of Shoshonian (Utes) and Moquelumnian stocks. In fact, it has a close affinity in appearance to those of the very near Athapascan (Hupa, etc.) stock. It is a matter of very great interest to compare with this a stick from the Mackenzie River. (See Fig. 28.) The resemblance is striking; it is as though one found a word of familiar sound and import in an unexpected place. The related tribes of the Indians dwelling on the Mackenzie have a wider range than the distance between the localities whence the respective sticks came; in fact, the Athapascans range about 50 degrees in latitude and the southern colonies of this great family are only about 250 miles southeast of the Washoans, while, as has been stated, the Hupas are quite near.

It would be presumptuous to say at present that this tool is a remnant of the influence of the Athapascan wave that swept along the Great Interior Basin, leaving groups here and there in California and other parts to mark its progress, but there is more to its credit than a coincidence of form and function.

The museum is in possession of a complete collection of fire-making material from the tribes of the Shoshonian stock. They were collected by Maj. J. W. Powell. The native name for the Ute fire set is _whu-tu ni-weap_. While the lower member of the set—the hearth—differs among the several tribes in point of material, shape, etc., the spliced drill is characteristic of the whole stock. It has never been noticed outside of the southern part of the Great Interior Basin but in one instance—among the Klamaths of Oregon. The main part of the drill is either a reed, or a straight sprout, usually the former. At one end a short piece of very hard wood—greasewood, _sarcobatus vermiculatus_—is set in and lashed with sinew. It resembles the Shoshonian arrows, which are foreshafted in this way. They also use sand in common with other neighboring tribes.

The Pai-Utes, of Southern Utah, make their hearths of a short, rounded piece usually of the sap-wood of juniper. It is tied to the drill with a thong of buckskin when not in use (fig. 7). The drill is like the usual one, just described. This is the common form of the Pai-Ute apparatus. The small, two-holed hearth of rounded form, and the shortened, spliced drill are for convenience of carrying, this kind being used by hunters while away from the lodges. Mr. S. J. Hare says that the men do not usually make the fire, except when out on a hunting excursion. At the lodge it is the squaw’s duty to make the fire when it is needed.

The Pai-Ute is rarely at a loss to get fire; he is master of various devices. Mr. Hare, who was among the Utes for some time, states that when the Indian is in need of a light he uses either the flint and steel, the drill, or, if these are not at hand, he takes two branches, and rubs one up and down on the other, soon getting fire. The Australians are said to have practiced fire-making by rubbing in the way mentioned. This is the only observation collected of its occurrence in America. It is, in all probability, a difficult, unusual way; only practiced under pressure of necessity among the Utes. They take great pride in their skill; to be a quick fire-maker is to achieve fame in the tribe. They are fond of exhibiting their art to white travelers in the hope of gain.

Another form of hearth (fig. 8) is made of yucca flower stalk, like those of the Apache and Navajos. The drill is of tule reed, set with a very hard wood head. It is suggested that the reason for splicing the drill is that the hard wood of the kind used for the head (greasewood) can not be procured in pieces long enough to make the whole drill. This set is apparently one used as a fixture in the Ute domestic economy, the squaws having to light the fire. The duty is mainly relegated to the females in several other Indian tribes, and among the Eskimo. Mr. Catlin says that the Sioux objected to letting the squaws have their portraits painted, saying that their women had never taken scalps, nor done anything better than make fires and dress skins.[6] The hearth and drill last figured are respectively 20 and 23 inches long, while in the hunting set (fig. 8) the length is 7 and 18 inches.

The Wind River Shoshones are also represented (fig. 9). The hearth is of hard wood, rudely hacked out, and rounded. Upon the slanting edge are eight holes, or shallow depressions, prepared for the drill, with notches cut in to meet them from the sides. The drill is a willow branch, 25 inches long, with a hard wood head mortised in, and served with buckskin. It is most probable that sand was used with this set, because, if the parts are not models, it would be necessary to use it on sticks of equal hardness like these. I am inclined to believe that they are models, from their appearance, and from the difficulty of setting up a pyrogenic friction upon them even with sand. They were collected some fifteen years ago by Maj. J. W. Powell.

The Mokis are the most differentiated members of the Shoshonian stock. Mrs. T. E. Stevenson collected the two excellent fire-making sets in the Museum from the Moki Pueblos. The hearth is a branch of the very best quality of soft wood. In one hearth an end has been broken off, but there still remain eighteen fire-holes, showing that it was in use for a long time and highly prized (fig. 10). The drill is a roughly dressed branch of hard wood. It is comparatively easy to make fire on this apparatus. In the set numbered 126,694 these conditions are reversed; the hearth is tolerably hard wood and the drill soft wood.

The Moki fire-tools are used now principally in the estufas to light the sacred fire and the new fire as do the Zuñis, and the Aztecs of Mexico did hundreds of years ago. They use tinder of fungus or dried grass rubbed between the hands.

By their language the Zuñi people belong to a distinct stock of Indians. Their fire-sticks are of the agave stalk, a soft, pithy wood with harder longitudinal fibers, rendering it a good medium for the purpose of making fire.

As to the plan pursued in grinding out fire, Col. James Stevenson informed the writer that they make a slightly concave place where the burnt holes are seen, cut the notch on the side, sprinkle a little fine sand on the concavity, set the end of the round stick on the sand and roll it rapidly between the palms of the hands, pressing down hard. The “sawdust,” Colonel Stevenson called it, oozes out of the notch and forms a small mass, which on blowing slightly becomes a burning coal, and the application of a little tinder creates a blaze. For preserving the fire for any length of time they use a piece of decayed wood. (Figs. 11 and 12.)

Viewed in another aspect than as an implement of necessary or common use, this set is an important cult apparatus in the wonderfully complicated religious worship of the Zuñis. These people make the sacred fire that burns always in their estufas by friction of wood that has been wet. New fire is made at the beginning of their new year with great ceremony. The house is swept and everything is moved out of it until the fire is made. Their regard for fire and their customs with reference to it add them to the list of peoples who have held it in similar reverence and have practiced similar customs all over the world, ranging widely in time. The wetting of the drill, increasing their labor, may be done to please their Gods.

This art must have been practiced for a long time in this region, for Mr. Henry Metcalf found a hearth (Fig. 13) with three fire-holes in a cave-dwelling at Silver City, New Mexico. It is apparently very ancient. The wood is much altered and has become heavy by impregnation with some salt, probably niter.

The Apaches and Navajos belong to the great Athapascan stock, that ranges so widely in North America. Capt. John G. Bourke, U. S. Army, collected the hearth of yucca wood shown (Fig. 14), and says:

With the stick you now see, the Apache Indians in my presence made
fire in not quite eight seconds by the watch, and one asserted that he
could make it in a number of motions, which, on the watch, occupied
exactly two seconds, that is, under most favorable circumstances. The
experiments, made under my own observation, ran all the way from eight
to forty-seven seconds; sand is generally used, although not essential
to success.

Captain Bourke’s observation is very interesting, as it records the fact that the Apache is the most skillful fire-maker in the world. Many other tribes can make fire in less than a minute; I think by far the majority of them, but there is no eight-second record, while if he could prove his ability to do it in two seconds he would arrive at the facility of striking a match.

Mr. William F. Corbusier has noticed the fire-making of the Apache-Yumas of Arizona (Yuman stock).[7] They use a drill about 2 feet long and one-half inch thick, made of _o-oh-kad-je_, or “Fire-stick bush.” Its end is dipped in sand and drilled on a soft piece of agave or yucca stalk held down by the feet. They carry a slow torch of dead wood (spunk) and also use a flint and steel. For tinder they use dry grass or bark fiber. They use also a fungus, _polyporus_ sp., for the same purpose.

Another reference to the fire making of this stock (Yuman) is found in the translation by the late Dr. Charles Rau of the writings of Father Baegert on the Californian Peninsula.[8] He says:

To light a fire, the Californian makes no use of steel and flint, but
obtains it by the friction of two pieces of wood. One of them is
cylindrical and pointed at one end, which fits into a round cavity in
the other, and by turning the cylindrical piece with great rapidity
between their hands, like a twirling-stick, they succeed in igniting
the lower piece if they continue the process for a sufficient length
of time.

The Navajo fire-set looks very much like a mere makeshift. The hearth is a piece of yucca stalk and the fire-holes have but a shallow side notch. The drill is a broken arrow shaft, to which has been rudely lashed with a cotton rag a smaller piece of yucca wood (fig. 15). This carelessness, which it is rather than lack of skill, is characteristic of the Navajos in their minor implements. They resemble the crude Apache in this. One thinks of the Navajos only with regard to their fine blanket weaving and silver working, so well presented by Dr. Washington Matthews in the reports of the Bureau of Ethnology, and does not consider their arts in other lines.[9]

Mr. Thomas C. Battey, a Friend, long missionary among the Indians, kindly gives a description of the Kiowan fire-making process, not now practiced among them, but shown to him as a relic of an abandoned art:

A piece of very hard and coarse, rough-grained wood, perhaps 8 inches
in length, 2 in width, and three-fourths of an inch in thickness is
procured. In one side of this and near one edge several holes are
made, about one-half an inch in diameter by five-eighths of an inch in
depth, rounded at the bottom, but left somewhat rough or very slightly
corrugated. In the edge nearest these holes a corresponding number of
smaller and tapering holes are made, opening by a small orifice into
the bottom of each of the larger ones. These are made very smooth.

A straight stick, also of hard, rough-grained wood, about 8 or 10
inches in length, about the size they usually make their arrows or
larger, is provided. Both ends of this are rounded, but one end is
made smooth, the other is left slightly rough. The dried pith of some
kind of reed, or more probably of the yucca, some fibers of the same
loosely prepared like hackled flax, some powdered charcoal, I think
formed by charring the yucca, and a piece of hard thick leather
similar to sole leather, completes the outfit, which is carried in a
leather bag made for the purpose. The first described piece of wood is
placed upon the knees of the operator with a quantity of the fibrous
substance beneath it which has been powdered with charcoal dust; some
of the latter is put into one of the holes and the rough end of the
stick inserted, the other end is put into an indentation of the
leather placed under the chin, so that a gentle pressure may be
exerted. The spindle is then rapidly revolved by rolling it one way
and the other between the hands. The friction thus produced by the
rubbing of the roughened surfaces ignites the fine coal dust, which,
dropping as sparks of fire through the orifice at the bottom of the
hole, falls into the dry fibrous preparation, thus igniting that, then
by the breath blowing upon it a flame is produced and communicated to
some fine dry wood and a fire is soon obtained. The whole operation
occupies but a few minutes.

One of the rudest fire-making appliances in the Museum was collected by Prof. W. M. Gabb, at Talamanca, Costa Rica. The hearth is a rude billet of charred, black wood, resembling mahogany. It has central holes, with no gutter usually, though sometimes a shallow notch is cut on both sides of the fire-hole. The drill is a light branch, rather crooked, but dressed down roughly with a knife. Another hearth is of partly decayed, worm-eaten wood; with this a hard wood drill can be used, the hearth wasting away instead of the drill (fig. 16.) The absence of any fire slot, that is, the use of the central fire-hole, is worthy of notice in this locality. I have only observed its use in various parts of the Eskimo area, from East Greenland to Kadiak; outside of this range I have not noticed it anywhere else among the present tribes of the world. From descriptions given it seems to have been practiced by the Caranchua Indians, a recently extinct tribe in Texas and Mexico. (See below.)

These specimens from Costa Rica are the crudest fire tools, not to be mere make-shifts, that have come to my notice or have been described in the literature examined. The Costa Rican Indians are very interesting in their preservation of several other arts that may justly be classed among the most ancient. One may be mentioned, that of bark cloth making. Professor Gabb made quite a collection from Talamanca, but has not left any notes on these remarkable people, who are well worthy of the careful study of ethnologists.

A curious modification of this central hole plan is figured and described in Oviedo, folio 90, as occurring in Hispaniola; that is, the West Indies, Hayti, San Domingo, etc. He says that “two dry light sticks of brown wood were tied firmly together, and the point of the drill of a particular hard wood was inserted between the two and then worked.” Mr. H. Ling Roth[10] thinks that if one can judge from the illustration (which is a miserable one) in Benzoni’s work, the natives of Nicaragua also used three sticks in making fire. Benzoni, however, says:[11]

All over India they light fire with two pieces of wood; although they
had a great deal of wax, they knew no use for it, and produced light
from pieces of wild pine wood.

From Oviedo’s description I am inclined to believe that the dust in which the fire starts was allowed to fall below on tinder placed beneath the hearth.

Through the kindness of Prof. F. W. Putnam, curator of the Peabody Museum, at Cambridge, Mass., I have received an extract from a manuscript written by Mrs. Alice W. Oliver, of Lynn, who, as a girl, in 1838 resided on Matagorda Bay, and learned the language and customs of the Caranchua Indians, a separate stock, now thought to be extinct.

Mrs. Oliver says:

After the hut is built a fire is made, the squaws usually begging fire
or matches from the settlers, but, in case their fire is out and they
have no other means of kindling it, they resort to the primitive
method of producing it by friction of wood. They always carry their
fire-sticks with them, keeping them carefully wrapped in several
layers of skins tied up with thongs and made into a neat package; they
are thus kept very dry, and as soon as the occasion for their use is
over, they are immediately wrapped up again and laid away.

These sticks are two in number. One of them is held across the knees
as they squat on the ground, and is about two feet long, made of a
close-grained, brownish-yellow wood (perhaps pecan), half round in
section; the flat face, which is held upward, is about an inch across.
Three cylindrical holes about half an inch in diameter and of equal
depth, the bottoms slightly concave, are made in it. The three holes
are equally distant apart, about 2 inches, and the first one is the
same distance from the end of the stick, which rests upon the right
knee. In one of the holes is inserted the slightly-rounded end of a
twirling stick made of a white, softer kind of wood, somewhat less
than the diameter of the hole, so as to turn easily, and about 18
inches long.

Holding the twirler vertically between the palms of the hands, a
gentle but rapid alternating rotary motion is imparted. After
continuing this for about five minutes the abrasion of the softer wood
causes a fine, impalpable dust to collect in the hole, from which soon
issues a thin, blue line of smoke.

As soon as the Indian sees this he quickly withdraws his twirler with
one hand, while with the other he catches up and crushes a few dry
leaves previously placed on a dry cloth close by (having been produced
from thin wrappings, in which they have been preserved for this very
purpose, to serve as tinder), and quickly but lightly sprinkles them
in and around the hole, over which both hands are now held
protectingly, the head bent down, and the incipient fire fanned to a
blaze with the breath. As soon as the blaze has fairly caught, the
stick and tinder are deftly turned over upon a little pile of dry
twigs and leaves, got ready beforehand, and the fire is started.

This operation of getting fire is always performed by the men, and not
by the squaws. The fire is invariably built in the center of the hut,
upon the ground, and, is usually kept burning, for the Indians never
slept regularly, but whenever they pleased, often asleep in the day
time and awake nights, or _vice versa_, as they felt inclined.

3. IROQUOIS WEIGHTED DRILL.

The Iroquois are unique in America, and perhaps in the world, in making fire with the pump-drill. Several other tribes in America use the pump drill to pierce stone and shell, for which purpose it is an excellent tool, but the mechanical difficulties lying in the way of making fire with it have only been overcome by the Iroquois. Pump-drills are intended for light, fine work, with uniform, light pressure; hence, with little friction. The Iroquois have added this element by increasing the size of the balance-wheel and stock. Mr. Morgan, in his “League of the Iroquois,” p. 381, figures a fire drill with a wooden stock 4 feet long and 1 inch in diameter. This stock has at the upper end a string and bow, while near the lower end is a “small wheel.” Mr. Morgan says this is “an Indian invention of great antiquity.”

Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, of the Bureau of Ethnology, has kindly given the writer a set of apparatus and valuable information with reference to fire-making among the Iroquois, especially the Onondagas and Tuscaroras. He states that at times when there is disease among the people they say it is because the fire is “old.” They then determine to make “new fire,” so all fires are put out and two slippery-elm logs are selected and one of these is laid on the ground and a V-shaped notch is cut on the upper side. In this notch some tinder of dry slippery-elm is put and three (mystic or sacred number) men at either end work the other log backward and forward until fire is generated, and from this the fires are lighted. He believes that the new fire is made at the winter feast of the Iroquois. They say that the drill with the weight is their own invention. They use elm for that also. In making the pump-drill they sometimes cut an elm sapling and work out the drill, leaving the tap root for the fore part, the knot for the weight, and part of the stem for the top part of the drill.

It is not improbable that the Iroquois—the most advanced Indians in some respects on the continent, invented this use of the widely diffused pump-drill. It scarcely seems to be a practical way to make fire, and, despite the assurances and belief of the Iroquois, is not very ancient, but was perhaps suggested by the white man. Indeed, Pere Lafitau, that keen and careful observer, in his “Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains,” written in 1724, on page 242, gives a description of Indian fire-making that includes the Iroquois. He says:

The Hurons, the Iroquois, and the other peoples of North America do
not make fire from the veins of flint, but rub two pieces of wood one
against the other.

Then follows a description of fire-making, taken probably from the Iroquois, that is as good an account of the Indian apparatus and the way of working it as exists in the literature of the subject.

The drill was sufficient for its time for the reason that there was at that period rarely necessity for generating fire; the art of fire preservation was at its height.

The Cherokees, the most southerly of the Iroquois, Mr. James Mooney states, kept fire buried in the mounds upon which the council houses were built, so that if the house was destroyed by enemies the fire would remain there for a year or so. The Cherokees use the simple rotation apparatus, and, as far as Mr. Mooney can ascertain, never used the pump-drill. They have a tradition that fire originally came out of an old hollow sycamore tree (_Platanus occidentalis_).

Capt. John Smith tells how the Indians of Virginia made fire. He says:

Their fire they kindled presently by chafing a dry pointed sticke in a
hole of a little square piece of wood, that firing itselfe, will so
fire mosse, leaves, or anie such like drie thing that will quickly
burn.[12]

Writing in the first quarter of the next century, Beverley says:

They rubbed Fire out of particular sorts of Wood (as the Ancients did
out of the Ivy and Bays) by turning the end of a Piece that is soft
and dry, like a Spindle on its Inke, by which it heats and at length
burns; to this they put sometimes also rotten Wood and dry leaves to
hasten the Work.[13]

Loskiel says of the Delawares:

Formerly they kindled fire by turning or twirling a dry stick, with
great swiftness on a dry board, using both hands.[14]

The Cherokees used for a drill the stalk of a composite plant (senecio), and twirled it on a piece of wood. The art has long been out of common use, but they employed the wooden drill to make fire for the Green Corn Dance into the present century, though flint and steel was then in vogue. Sometimes they passed the bow over drill. The tinder was of a fungus or dried moss. Mr. James Mooney collected this information from some of the older men of the tribe in North Carolina, who have retained the ancient customs and traditions, which the part of the tribe removed to the West has entirely lost.

The Creeks (Muskogean stock) had a regularly authorized fire-maker, who early in the morning made fire for the Green Corn Dance. The apparatus that he made use of was four sticks placed end to end to form a square cross. This was oriented, and at the junction of the sticks new fire was made by friction.[15]

The Choctaws (also Muskogean) of Mississippi, Mr. M. F. Berry writes, make fire in the following way: One stick of dry wood that has a hole in it, with a smaller hole at the bottom going through, is placed between the feet. Another piece made round and about 3 feet long is made to revolve rapidly back and forth between the hands in the hole, and the fire drops through the small hole below. When new fire was wanted for the Green Corn Dance, or other purposes, three men would place themselves so that each in turn could keep the stick revolving without a stop, until fire would drop down through the hole, which was nursed with dry material into a flame.

This form of the fire hearth is not represented in the collections of the Museum; the only other description of a process closely like it was given by Mr. Thomas C. Battey, who observed it among the Kiowas. It was shown him at that time as a revival of the ancient method (p. 543). The pierced fire hearth is somewhat impracticable, except in the Malay sawing method. In the rotary drill the small hole would come over the axis of least friction and heat. Unless provision was made for the dust to fall freely underneath by a double cone perforation worked from both sides the dust is likely to become obstructed and smother the fire. It will be seen, too, that it departs very much from the simplicity of the usual fire drill in the fact that a hole must be made through the piece of wood, a matter of some difficulty before the introduction of iron awls.

The Seminoles of Florida, the most Southern Muskoki, have neglected the art of fire making by simple friction, unless at the starting of the sacred fire for the Green Corn Dance, says Mr. Clay MacCauley.[16] A fire is now kindled either by the common matches, _ma-tci_, or by steel and flint.

Thus it is seen that wherever in the earlier period of the exploration in this country the observation has been made, the Indian, almost without exception, was found to be using the friction apparatus, consisting of two sticks of wood. Some tribes had improved on the working of the invention, while a very few others had perhaps arrived at the use of the higher invention of the flint and pyrites.

Returning to the tribes of the wide central plains of our country, we find that the flint and steel soon displaced the fire-sticks, except for religious purposes. The Mandans, of the great Siouan stock, were using flint and steel at the time of Mr. Catlin’s visit in 1832.[17]

There seems to be a great misapprehension among some of the writers on ethnology, as to the general use of the bow-drill among the Indians. In mentioning that the Sioux use the bow-drill, Schoolcraft is quoted as authority. As a matter of fact the reference is to a “made-up” figure of a bow-drill set, marked “Dacota.” On the same plate there is a representation of an Iroquois pump-drill that is obviously wrong. The lower part of the plate is taken up by a picture of an Indian woman (presumably Californian) pounding acorns in a mortar. To complete the absurdity the whole plate is entitled “Methods of obtaining fire by percussion,” and is placed in the text of a _questionnaire_ on the Californian Indians, opposite a description of the Californian way of making fire by twirling two sticks.[18]

Mr. Schoolcraft is not to blame for this state of affairs; in those days illustrations were not ethnological, they were “padding” gotten up by the artist. Nowhere in his great work does Mr. Schoolcraft describe either the Dacota or Iroquois drill. Among the northern Indians in central and northern Canada, however, the bow is used.

Sir Daniel Wilson, in his work on Prehistoric Man, notes that the Red Indians of Canada use the drill bow. In August, 1888, at the meeting of the American association, at Toronto, he gave an account of the facility with which these Indians make fire. He said that at Nipissing, on the north shore of Lake Superior, while he was traveling in a pouring rain, and not having the means wherewith to light a fire, an Indian volunteered to light one. He searched around for a pine knot and for tinder, rubbed up the soft inner bark of the birch between the hands, got a stick from a sheltered place, made a socket in the knot and another piece of wood for a rest for the drill, tied a thong to a piece of a branch for a bow. He put the tinder in the hole and rested his breast on the drill and revolved it with the bow and quickly made fire.

It is perhaps true that some of the Dacotas did use the bow at times, but it is not correct to place it as the customary tool of the whole stock. On the contrary, there is evidence that they used the simple means. Dr. J. Owen Dorsey writes:

I was told in 1879 by the late Joseph La Flèche, that the Omahas,
prior to the advent of the white men, made fire by using pieces of the
“du-à-du-á-hi,” a grass (?) that grows in the Sand Hill region of
Nebraska, near the sources of the Elkhorn River. One piece was placed
horizontally on the ground, and a slight notch was cut at one end,
wherein a few grains of sand were put. The other stick was held
between the palms of the hands, with one end in the notch of the
horizontal stick, and then rolled first in one direction then in the
other till fire was produced. A fresh notch was made in the first
stick whenever the old one became useless, and so on until it became
necessary to procure a new stick.

In the Green Corn Dance of the Minitaries, another Siouan tribe, the “corn is boiled on the fire, which is then put out by removing it with the ashes and burying them. New fire is made by desperate and painful exertion, by three men seated on the ground facing each other and violently drilling the end of a stick into a hard block of wood by rolling 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.”[19] 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;[20] 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.[21]

In Brazil, in the Province of Goyaz, the Chavantes, Cayapós, and Angaytés, use the simple fire drill.[22] The Angaytés drill figured looks somewhat like that of the Mokis. It is usually 28^cm. long for the hearth, and for the drill 20^cm. 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.[23]

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-sticks of the Ainos of Yezo (No. 129970, fig. 17) were loaned to the Museum by Prof. F. W. Putnam, who also secured the following letter of Mr. D. P. Penhallow, who collected the sticks:

At our request the chief brought several fire-sticks to my house,
together with the necessary number of men to get fire in the approved
style. Upon examination the sticks were found to be from 6 to 9 inches
long, and very dry. Our informant stated that they were from the root
of the elm _Ulmus campestris_, var. _lævis_, and that it was customary
to keep a supply ahead, as the sticks require to be seasoned for about
one year, by hanging them from the rafters of the house above the
fire. To prepare them for the process of making fire, a shorter stick
was cut flat on opposite sides, and about midway of one of the
flattened sides a small hole was made with the point of the knife for
the purpose of establishing the center of action. Another stick about
9 inches long was then well sharpened at one end. Three men now seated
themselves in a circle, facing inward, with the flattened stick
notched side uppermost in the center.

The point of the long stick was now placed in the notch, and with the
stick in a vertical position and grasped between the extended palms of
the hands, a steady and somewhat fast rotating pressure was brought to
bear, exactly as in the use of the old-fashioned awl. As soon as the
first man became weary, the second brought his hands to bear upon the
upper end of the stick, and continued the motion without allowing it
to cease. This was repeated as often as necessary until fire was
obtained. Owing to the very dry character of the sticks used, the
parts in contact rapidly wear away, so that the notch quickly becomes
cup-shaped, and the pointed end is correspondingly rounded, while at
the same time the powdery product is thrown out, forming a raised ring
on all sides. Before long it is observed that the powder acquires a
brownish tinge. This gradually deepens as the temperature rises until
finally a delicate line of smoke warns the operator that the end is
near.

The motion is now continued until the smoke is well established, when
the vertical stick is raised, disclosing a spark on its end. The mouth
is applied to the opposite extremity, and by means of a few vigorous
pulls as if smoking a cigar, owing to the porous nature of the stick,
the spark is drawn into a flame.

The actual operation as witnessed by us consumed about two hours, and
the Ainos state that the process requires from one and one-half to two
and one-half hours.

The sticks figured are the actual ones that were used in the operation above described.

The Japanese formerly used the simple drill; a few are yet preserved in the temples. Under the name of “Sacred fire drill” it is described[24] as a board 1 foot wide, 1 foot 4 inches long, 1 inch thick, and with a step 1 inch wide or over on one edge. It has holes and grooves like the Eskimo hearth. The drill is a stick twirled between the hands. The parts are of the _hi-no-ki_, or fire tree, _Chamæocyparis obtusa_. The drill is called _hi-kiri-usu_, or fire drilling mortar. It was and perhaps is yet used for the purpose of drilling fire at the four corners of the temple inclosure to ward off the calamity of fire. They are said also to have used the _rokuro_, or pump-drill. It is interesting to note that the Japanese carpenter’s drill with the iron point is rotated between the palms. They are still in use. The one figured is in the Tokio Museum.

Prof. Romyn Hitchcock has kindly allowed a drawing to be made of a photograph which he procured of a sacred fire drill preserved in the temple called Oyashiro, at Idzumo, Japan (fig. 18). The hearth of this set is made of _hi-no-ki_ wood and the drill of the _Ut-su-gi, Deutzia scabra_.

Professor Hitchcock says:

The fire drill is used at the festivals of the Oyashiro to produce
fire for use in cooking the food offered to the gods. Until the temple
was examined officially in 1872, the head priest used it for preparing
his private meals at all times. Since then it has been used only at
festivals and in the head priest’s house on the eve of festivals, when
he purifies himself for their celebration in the _Imbidous_, or room
for preparing holy fire, where he makes the fire and prepares the
food.

The art of fire-making by sticks of wood by the method of rotation is, or has been, as far as we know, universal on the African continent as it was in the two Americas at the time of the discovery. There is not a clue as to how the ancient Egyptians generated fire.

The Somalis are a pastoral people of Arab extraction, inhabiting a large maritime country south of the Gulf of Aden. Their fire-sticks (fig. 19) are pieces of branches of brownish wood of equal texture, in fact the hearth has formerly been used as a drill, as may be seen by its regularly-formed and charred end. This is another proof that it is not necessary that the sticks should be of different degrees of hardness. The grain of the wood, that of the drill being against and the hearth with the grain, in effect accomplishes what the use of wood of different qualities results in. The hearth and drill are in the neighborhood of 12 inches long, the former with a diameter of three-eighths of an inch and the latter one-fourth of an inch. They were collected by Dr. Charles Pickering in 1843.

It is possible that the Somalis may have carried this method with them from Arabia. They conquered this coast, driving back the earlier tribes inhabiting the country in the early part of the fifteenth century. Long since that time, and even now, some Arab tribes practice the drilling of wooden sticks to produce fire.

In eastern equatorial Africa the Wataveita, says Mr. H. H. Johnston, generate fire in the common African way by rapidly drilling a hard-pointed stick into a small hole in a flat piece of wood. An interesting bit of custom comes out in connection with this art among the people. “It is the exclusive privilege of the men, and the secret is handed down from father to son, and never under any conditions (as they say) revealed to women.” I asked one man why that was. “Oh,” he said, “if women knew how to make fire they would become our masters.”[25] The figure (fig. 20) shows how this people of the great Bantu stock make fire; this tribe visited by Mr. Johnston lives on the slopes of the beautiful Kilimanjaro Mountain.

Mr. R. W. Felkin[26], in a study of the Maidu or Moru negroes of Central Africa, 5° north latitude, 30° 20′ east longitude, describes the fire-making of that tribe. He says that one piece of wood about the size and shape of a large pencil is rotated in a hole in a flat piece of hard wood. One man holds the wood steady whilst two others take it in turn to rotate the stick. This article of Mr. Felkin’s is commended to ethnologists as a model ethnologic study in method and research.

That veteran and renowned explorer, Dr. Schweinfurth, gives the following:

The method of obtaining fire, practiced alike by the natives of the
Nile lands and of the adjacent country in the Welle system, consists
simply in rubbing together two hard sticks at right-angles to one
another till a spark is emitted. The hard twigs of the _Avona
senegalensis_ are usually selected for the purpose. Underneath them is
placed either a stone or something upon which a little pile of embers
has been laid; the friction of the upper piece of wood wears a hole in
the lower, and soon a spark is caught by the ashes and is fanned into
a flame with dry grass, which is swung to and fro to cause a draught,
the whole proceeding being a marvel which might well-nigh eclipse the
magic of my lucifer matches.[27]

Kaffir fire-making is described in some detail in the following: