FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 19 



DEVELOPMENT OF FIRE TOOLS AND FURNISHINGS OF THE 



FIREPLACE 



In extension of the remarks covering the rudiments of invention in 

 the fireplace, the growth of these inventions may be followed to the 

 threshold of the age of progress. 



It is evident that the first fire tools were sticks, ancestor of the 

 poker. Such undifferentiated pokers are always present around the 

 fires of unadvanced peoples. Necessarily the poker is not subject to 

 differentiation, and remains throughout the ages a straight tool for 

 stirring the fire. 



For removal of a brand or heated stones from the fire tongs have 

 been invented. The simplest form would be two sticks held in the 

 hands in apposition against the object to be removed (pi. 5, figs. 1,2). 

 Among the Northwest Coast tribes two sticks with a grommet of 

 bark or twisted wand over one end suggest tongs. The sticks are 

 flattened on one side and form an efficient tool. Less useful tongs 

 are made by splitting a stick part way. The Pueblos and other 

 Southwestern tribes work out a stick into two spring prongs and use 

 them for picking up spiney fruit of the cactus and coals (pi. 5, figs. 3, 4) . 

 In a cave in Utah, Palmer found ancient wooden tongs. The same 

 style of implement is now used for handUng hot stones, either to place 

 them in boiling food or in the roasting trays for preparing seeds.^^ 

 Following these is a long line of tongs showing minor variations 

 which reaches to the present. 



Scissorlike tongs are found in Spain for use about the brazier (pi. 

 o, figs. 7, 8). The small bronze tongs shown are Danish and were 

 used in borrowing fire (pi. 5, fig. 6). 



In the development of the fire shovel the crotch stick used for 

 lifting is presumably a very early form. The Pomo and other 

 California tribes made a lifter by bending a slender rod of wood at 

 the middle portion into a loop and the straight parts of the rod are 

 brought together to form a handle. When finished this implement 

 is Uke the eastern Indian ball racket without the net lacing (pi. 5, 

 fi^g. 5). Generally in America such devices are used where boiling by 

 means of hot stones prevails and for moving the stones for the sweat 

 bath. The fork and the shovel appear to be one in development. Avery 

 ancient two-tined fork of copper found by Schliemann in Mycenae was 

 identified by him as an implement for stirring and regulating funerary 

 fire. ^^ 



The fire-blowing tube has siu'vived in Europe. A specimen secured 

 in Spain in 1892 by the writer consists of a brass tube, the upper 

 end open full and the lower end having only a small hole, the object 



M First Ann. Kept., Peabody Museum, 1878, p. 270. 

 " Henry Schliemann. Mycenae, London, 1878, p. 255. 



102837—26 3 



