FIEE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTUKE 73 



The Indians of the northwest coast and the Sioux were in the 

 habit of singeing off their hair with a firebrand. Among the Plains 

 tribes the woman cut off her hair and put it in the grave of her dead 

 husband. When her hair grew to its accustomed length she was 

 permitted to marry again. 



Du Pratz records that hair was cut among the southern Indians 

 by means of a coal of charcoal. ^^ 



The western Dene of Canada melted holes through the ice with 

 heated stones previous to fishing in winter.^^ 



In pitching their basket water bottles the Ute Indians pursue the 

 following method : 



They pound or break up pine pitch, put it inside of the basket, 

 and introduce hot stones which they shake up in the basket, evenly 

 distributing the pitch over the entire inner surface.^'' The Apache 

 also use this method. 



A number of tribes parch grain and seeds by shaking them with 

 hot stones in a basket tray. 



Major Powell describes roasting seeds in a basket among the Ute 

 Indians as follows: 



"They roast them curiously; they put the seeds, with a quantity 

 of red-hot coals, into a willow tray, and, by rapidly and dexterously 

 shaking and tossing them, keep the coals aglow and the seeds and 

 tray from burning. As if by magic, so skilled are the crones in this 

 work, they roll the seeds to one side of the tray as they are roasted, 

 and the coals to the other." -^ The southern Indians parch maize in 

 this manner .^^ 



The extended use of heated stones in cooking is taken up on page 40. 



DECORATION 



Decorative art is indebted to fire in many applications to wood, 

 leather, horn, bone, bamboo, and other materials. The use of fire for 

 such purposes is still current under pyrolizing or "poker work." The 

 American Indians employed it on small surfaces, as pipestems, clubs, 

 tomahawk handles, and so forth. One of the first uses of files brought 

 by the trader was to heat them and press them on wood surfaces, 

 producing a grained effect pleasing to the Indians. A variety of this 

 ornamentation, practiced by the Chippewa and a few other tribes, 

 consisted in winding a strip of skin around a cylindrical piece of wood, 

 as a lance shaft, and holding the object over the fire till the exposed 

 spaces were deeply smoked. 



18 Du Pratz. Paris, 1758, vol. 2, p. 198. 



» A. G. Morice. Proc. Canad. Inst., vol. 25, October, 1889, p. 130. 



*> Information by Judge Nathan Bijur, New Yorlc. 



M J. W. Powell. Exploration of the Colorado River of the West, Washington, 1S75, p. 127. 



MJ. R. Swanton. Bull. 43, Bur. Amer. Ethnol., 1911, p. 74. 



