FIEE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 93 



mourning. It must be ritually extinguished, the idea being that it 

 participates in the general contamination of death (vol. 1, p. 135). 



"Gungunyane used to levy a tax on fire. He ordered all the fires 

 of his kingdom to be extinguished at a certain time, and sent mes- 

 sengers to relight them by means of embers procured from the royal 

 kraal. Each village had to pay a tax for the new fire. It seems 

 that this kind of royal right was exercised in the old times by the 

 famous Monomotapa king. Nothing of the kind is met with amongst 

 the more modest Thonga chiefs. 



"The manner of producing fire with the wooden flint is as follows: 

 A dry branch of the tree is secured, from half an inch to ah inch 

 thick, and cut into two pieces, each of about 18 inches in length; 

 one half is called the wife (nsati) , the other half the husband (nuna) . 

 The first piece, the female, is laid on the ground and a notch is made 

 in it -svith a knife; the notch is cut in two movements, first on the 

 upper part of the wood, secondly on the side of it. The male is then 

 somewhat rounded, inserted perpendicularly in the notch, held firmly 

 between the palms of the hands and made to revolve by a rapid 

 motion of the hands rubbing it from top to bottom. The operator 

 having reached the bottom of the male at once starts again from the 

 top; so the frictions follow each other immediately. The motion 

 widens the notch in the female to such an extent that the male pen- 

 etrates and begins to burn it; the ashes find their way out by the 

 lateral notch; a little dry grass has been placed there and soon be- 

 gins to smolder. An expert obtains fire after six or seven consecu- 

 tive frictions, especially when using bulolo. 



" Embers are kept burning as much as possible the whole night on 

 the fireplace. Should they, however, have been allowed to go out, 

 the mistress of the kitchen will send her daughter to the neighboring 

 hut or village to fetch a glowing cinder. This is called *ku woka.' 

 The ember will be carefully brought on a sala shell or occasion- 

 ally in a big snail shell."" 



"Fire is kindled by the Bedouin when necessary by the common 

 method of rubbing one piece of wood against another. The Somal 

 call the process 'muddick.' One stick, about a foot long, is made 

 smooth to fit the hands conveniently, and with a point at one end. 

 The other stick is nicked nearly completely around the circumference. 

 The nicked stick is held on some smooth surface, as the sole of a shoe, 

 and the pointed stick is twirled by being rubbed rapidly between 

 the palms of the hands until wood dust falls down along the nick in 

 the other stick. This catches fire by friction. 



"I was shown several very dry-looking kinds of thorn trees which 

 supplied the best kinds of wood for this process."** 



"H. A. Junod. The Life of a South African Tribe, vol. 2, p. 32-34, Neuchatel, 1913. 

 " Carleton. Journ. Anthrop. Inst., London, 1892, vol 21, p. 167. 



