FIEE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 83 



the note of the screech owl, and can be heard for a great distance. 

 The women can best utter the scream; the men generally call out 

 'Wool!'"" 



The problem among uncivilized tribes relating to saving the food 

 supply from fire no doubt in part has had much to do with the 

 storing of such supplies in caches in the earth or plastered graner- 

 ies. In civilization, where cities may be enormous aggregations of 

 inflammable material, structures like the Chinese godowns appear. 

 The contest, however, between fire and fireproof structures is main- 

 tained to this day with doubtful results. 



A curious regulation, evidently intended to prevent fires by insur- 

 ing precautions on the part of householders, is found among the Kha 

 Tahoi of Laos : 



"In case of the partial or complete burning of a village the owner 

 of the house where the fire took place must pay two buffalo (one 

 white and one black). The sacrifice of their buffalo, which lasts 

 three days, is preceded by a sacrifice of chickens, which equally lasts 

 three days. It was then six days during which the village is IcTialam. 

 At the same time, if a passing stranger is in the house where the fire 

 starts he is compelled to pay the fine of two buffalo." ^^ 



TIME BY LIGHT AND FIRE 



Somewhere in the course of man's acquaintance with fire, presum- 

 ably quite late in the growth of ideas, time was associated with light 

 and fire. Using natural light there is noted the sundial, which has 

 great antiquity, and back of this crude gnomons of limited uses and 

 value. It is not likely that how long a piece of wood or a fire burned 

 was within the consciousness of early man, as manifestly the idea 

 was of no consequence in his rude life. There must be taken to 

 explain this topic methods that have a primitive cast found among 

 various peoples. A full and interesting account of the measure of 

 gross time by fire is given by Bartram, who observed the custom 

 among the Attassee Indians of Muskhogean stock in Alabama. 



"Bundles of dry cane are broken in pieces to about the length of 

 2 feet, and then placed obliquely crossways upon one another on 

 the floor, forming a spiral circle round about the great center pillar, 

 rising to a foot or 18 inches in height from the ground; and this circle 

 spreading as it proceeds round and round, often repeated from right 

 to left, every revolution increases the diameter, and at lenth extends 

 to the distance of 10 or 12 feet from the center, more or less, accord- 

 ing to the length of time the assembly or meeting is to continue. By 

 the time these preparations are accomplished it is night, and the 



" Rev. John Batchelor. Ainu of Japan, New York, 1903. 



•' M. Daupley. Les Kha Tahoi, Bull. Soc, Ethnogr. de Paris, new ser., vol. 3, 1914, p. 47. 



102837—26 7 



