FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 105 



It has been told the writer that the lower-class Japanese used and 

 still know the fire saw, but this has not been verified. It is probable 

 that the Malay have carried the saw to distant coasts. 



INDIA AND BURMA 



On the mainland of Asia low and less-advanced tribes to the south 

 and east furnish instances of the use of the fire saw. 



Capt. T. H. Lewis observes of the Chittagong Hill tribes on the 

 eastern frontier of British India: 



"A groove is cut on the convex side of a piece of bamboo and a 

 thin strip of bamboo rubbed with sand is drawn in this slit till ig- 

 nited dust falls through the thin crevice left in middle of slit onto 

 shavings."^* 



In Burma the natural bamboo is used, or a longitudinal V-shaped 

 excavation is made in a section of branch wood, a blade is made, 

 and the process goes on in the regular way.^^ 



The Todas use the oridinary drill and the Paniyans the saw, as 

 follows: "I recently came across a very ingenious method (pi. 1) of 

 making fire by friction, carried out by the Paniyans, who live at 

 Pudupadi, near the base of the Malabar hills. A portion of a bam- 

 boo stem about 1 foot in length, in which two nodes are included, is 

 split longitudinally into two equal parts On one half a sharp edge 

 is cut with a knife. In the other a longitudinal slit is made through 

 about two-thirds of its length, which is stuffed with a piece of cot- 

 ton cloth. The latter is held firmly on the ground with its convex 

 surface upwards, and the cutting edge drawn, with a sawing motion, 

 rapidily to and fro across it by two men, until the cloth is ignited by 

 the red-hot particles of wood in the groove cut by the sharp edge. The 

 cloth is then blown with the hps into a blaze, and the tobacco or 

 cooking fire can be hghted. " ^^ 



"Throughout northwest central Queensland two methods are 

 adopted for kindling fire, though the -second to be described is per- 

 haps commoner along the Upper Georgina. 



"a. Twirling the stick between the flattened palms. A very dry 

 piece of wood is selected, a Httle nick or concavity cut in front of 

 the operator (fig. 244). Another long stick of the same material is 

 taken, hke it perfectly dry, and its roughly sharpened extremity 

 placed vertically upon the nick already cut on the fixed piece. The 

 vertical one is now twirled, rolled backwards and forwards, as rapidly 

 as possible between the flat opened palms, the hands all the time 

 being pressed gradually and firmly downwards. The smoke, followed 



" Hill Tracts of Chittagong and the Dwellers Therein, Calcutta, 1869, p. 83. 



16 Information by Dr. R. M. Luther. See also Sci. Amer. Supp., 508, Sept. 26, 1885, p. 8107. 



» Madras Government Museum Bulletin, vol. 4, No, I, pp. 13-14. Madras, 1901. 



