FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 25 



valve action. This may be considered a most ingenious adaptation 

 of means to an end^." (pi. 7). 



H. Mitford Barber describes the bellows of the Shangaris and 

 Basutos in eastern South Africa. The bags are made from the whole 

 skin of the sable antelope, with the orifice stitched up. The tubes 

 are of the horns of the antelope cut off below the natural cavity and 

 the base fastened into the bag. The other ends are thrust into two 

 perforated stones laid against the fire. The valve is a slit in the 

 center of the bag edged with two sticks having a loop for the fingers. 

 The air is simply impounded and forced out, like bellows in south- 

 ern India. ^ 



A somewhat similar valve to the Gaboon specimen described 

 is found in the piston bellows of Borneo, where two plungers tipped 

 with a mass of downy feathers are thrust alternately into bamboo 

 cyUnders. The feathers act as a valve, as shown in the hair check 

 of Africa. This type of bellows from its wide distribution, mainly in 

 the Malay area, is called the Malayan bellows. The distribution 

 is Siam, Assam, Salwin, Sumatra, Java, Timor, Philippines, Mada- 

 gascar, and Dorey, New Guinea. 



The Chinese bellows is a rectangular box with piston covered with 

 cloth pulled by a rod with handle. The thick baseboard of the box 

 has a sht at either end leading to a hole in the edge where the two 

 openings meet. The ends of the air chamber are pierced with a 

 small grating. There is no valve cover over the gratings in the 

 specimen observed in the collections of the United States National 

 Museum, and the inference is that they were stopped alternately by 

 hand. Thus the bellows required two persons to work it and is in 

 the valveless class. The Chinese, however, must be credited with 

 knowledge of the valve. 



The Japanese bellows is described by Perry: "Their bellows are 

 pecuhar, being a wooden box with air chambers, containing valves 

 and a piston which is worked horizontally at one end Hke a hand 

 pump, while the compressed air issues from two outlets at the 

 sides." ^^ The outlets are near the ends and are apparently closed 

 with valves which act alternately on the back and forward stroke of 

 the piston. This bellows is decidely in advance of the Chinese form. 



The piston and box bellows were not introduced into Europe. 

 The inheritance of the bellows was evidently from Africa in the form 

 of the windbag, from which were derived all the various common 

 forms with valves developed before the age of great invention. 



In connection with this subject mention is made of a unique blast 

 apparatus used by the Lepcha jewelers of Sikkim, India. It is of 



" Specimen from the Gaboon, Africa, in the United States National Museum. (Crt. No. 184, 873, A. O 

 Goode.) 

 wjoum. Anth. Inst. Great Britain, 1891, vol. 21, pp. 302-304, pi. 22. 

 ••Japan Expedition Narrative, Washington, 1856, pp. 456-457. 



