FIEE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 41 



cause some Indian tribes/^ as the Assiniboine and other tribes in 

 various parts of the world, as a matter of exigency dig a hole in the 

 ground and line it with the green liide of an animal and boil with 

 hot stones food in this ingenious but extemporaneous vessel, the 

 theory has been advanced that early cave men may have used this 

 method. This is conjectural. Robert H. Lowie says in regard to 

 the Assiniboines : 



"When the men were on the warpath they dug a circular excava- 

 tion, which was lined with a skin pegged to the bottom of the pit. 

 Holes were cut along the rim of the hide and stakes were run through 

 them. Then water and meat were put in, while other men heated 

 rocks. First a rock with a rawhide loop around it was used to stir 

 the water, then red-hot stones were dropped in until the food was 

 boiled. The women are said never to have employed this method of 

 cooking; with them the normal method of preparation was to roast 

 meat on a spit planted obliquely over the fire. When necessary the 

 food was spread out by means of horizontal pins."" It was lor^ 

 thought that the name of this tribe should be translated " Stone 

 Boilers " but the meaning is hwani, coward, and assini, stone.*^ 



Two stones definitely used in stone boiling are shown in Plate 10, 

 Figures 4, 5. 



The National Museum has a specimen of the outfit used by the 

 Teton Sioux Indians in cooking meat of an animal in the animal's 

 paunch, collected by Miss Frances Densmore^^ (pi. 11). 



The use of heated stones for boiling is a mode of the appHcation 

 of heat which seems to have considerable antiquity. The use of hot 

 stones in connection with the oven has been mentioned. Hot stones 

 for boiling liquids and cooking food has, Uke the oven, a wide distrib- 

 ution. It would seem that this is probably the first method known 

 to man for storing temporarily and transferring heat, and knowledge 

 of this kind could well be acquired at the first fire. The vessels in 

 which stone boiling is practiced are skins of animals, water-tight 

 baskets, wooden boxes, wooden bowls, soapstone pots, bark vessels, 

 bamboo tubes, and gourds. 



In 1610 the Indians of eastern Canada made cooking pots of bark. 

 They dropped hot stones, one after another, into these pots full of 

 water and meat until the meat was cooked.^ 



Gilpin definitely says that the Micmacs of Nova Scotia made pots 

 and kettles of birch and pine bark in which water was heated by 

 throwing in hot stones. They also made coarse clay pots. Fish 

 were impaled and set up on forked sticks before the fire, and bones 



•« George Catlin. Eight Years, vol. 1, London, 1848, p. 54. 



•' Kobert H. Lowie. The Assiniboine, Anthrop. Paper, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., New York, 1909, p. 12. 



•* Information by J. N. B. Hewitt. 



••Bull. 61, Bur. Amer. Ethnol., p. 399. 



» Jos. Jouvency. Jesuit Relations (Thwaite^), vol. 1, 1918, p. 285. 



