FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 



By Walter Hough 



He<id Curator of Anthropology, United States National Museum 



PREDILECTION FOR HEAT 



One of the characteristics which man shares with many animals is 

 an appreciation of warmth. Humboldt remarks that in all climates 

 people show the same predilection for heat. ^ Fire was as necessary 

 to the Indians of Guiana as to Arctic peoples, by day and night. 

 Everyone has a fire under his hammock, kept up with great attention. 

 In the huts the fire is built on a clay hearth laid on the floor.^ 



This feature is cared for by clothing, habitation, and other matter 

 reflecting the natural adaptation to environment and antedating the 

 use of artificial warming, which begins with fire. In all phases of 

 man's development is evinced a fondness for hot springs, which early 

 were visited for the advantages of warmth, and to which later were 

 attributed heahng powers, and later still became resorts of luxury. 

 "Long before European settlers saw New Zealand the thermal and 

 mineral waters attracted the natives, who had discovered their cura- 

 tive properties." ^ In this connection it is surmised that the use of 

 hot water as a drink for the purpose of adding to the heat of the body 

 became appreciated at an early time, followed by the general use of 

 hot food and drink after the utihzation of fire. It may be seen that 

 much was learned as to the properties of heat from warm springs 

 before the domestication of fires. 



Another primitive example to which attention has not heen called 

 is the use of the warmth of animals. It has been observed that 

 animal societies show innumerable adaptations in response to the 

 reaction stimuli of cold. This reaction extends also through human- 

 ity. The close association of man with domestic animals at an 

 early period suggests a warmth utility which explains the surviving 

 traces of such association into the present, giving rise to good- 

 humored ridicule of people who lived somewhat primitively. 



> Travels and Researches, Edinburgh, 1832, ed. 4, p. 154. 

 ' Schomburgh. Hakluyt Society, London, 1848, p. 60. 

 •Henry M. Cadell. New York Sun, November, 1900. 



