FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CUX-TURE 165 



The following myth was collected from the southern Bantu : 

 "In the Ronga clans these two ancestors of mankind are called 

 Likala Humba and Nsilambowa. The first name means the one 

 who brought a glowing cinder in a shell, viz, the originator of fire. 

 (Compare the Hlengwe tradition, vol. l,p. 23.) Nsilambowa, the 

 name of the woman, means the one who grinds vegetables. The 

 first human beings, according to these names, would have been those 

 who introduced fire and the culinary art into the world! This idea 

 is interesting, and seems to show that for the native mind the cook- 

 ing of food is the pursuit which differentiates man from the animals." " 



COMMUNAL FIRE AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 



The role played by fire in the development of the artificial social 

 organization has been given great attention by many writers. The 

 thesis is briefly that the care of the fire was exiguous in earliest times, 

 and therefore enforced the delegation of an individual to its service. 

 Thus the first delegated office, that of fire keeper, had its inception. 

 From this beginning are traced institutions and the governing fabric 

 of society. It will be seen that on the introduction of this new social 

 element based on fire there would begin to run along together the 

 natural development springing from social instincts and the unifying 

 tendency growing out of the use of fire in common. 



Theories of primitive social integration provide for a communal 

 fire. Logically, in view of the limitations surrounding the first fire, 

 possession should be in common to whatever type of human grouping 

 obtained at the time. It is seen that the division of fire must neces- 

 sarily have taken place very soon, followed by the endless use of fire 

 for special purposes, and the separation into sacred and profane fire 

 must have been an early generalization. Some considerations on the 

 static effect of fire on early populations and on migrations are given 

 in the work cited below.®^ 



The communal fire, which remained a simple custom in many 

 instances among the lower grades of culture, developed into the 

 classical politico-religious hearths or alters of Greece and Rome 

 famihar as the prytaneum and temple of Vesta.®' Mr. Frazer clearly 

 accomplishes the task set at the beginning of his paper: " The object 

 of this paper is to prove the common origin of the Greek prj'taneum 

 and the Italian temple of Vesta, and to suggest an explanation of 

 the origin of the order of the vestals as well as of the custom of 

 maintaining perpetual fires" (p. 145). 



These survivals which are noted under fire preservation are thought 

 to hark back to the time when fire was not only carefully preserved 



•»H. A. Junod. The Life of a South African Tribe, vol. 2, p. 327, Neuchatel, 1913. 



* Walter Hough. The Distribution of Man in Relation to the Invention of Fire-Making Methods, 

 Amer. Anthrop., new ser., vol. 18, 1916, pp. 257-263. 



•• J. O. Frazer. The Prytaneum, the Temple of Vesta. Perpetual Fires. Joum. of Philology, vol. 14, 

 pp. 145-172. London, 1885. 



