FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 203 



mable pine before these personages when they danced. These 

 bundles were very heavy and made the porters bend under their 

 loads. On them fell sparks, and sometimes the torches slipped out 

 of the hands and fell on the ground in burning. Besides these on 

 the two sides of the parcours they lighted with torches of resin which 

 they called 'tlemaitl'."" 



Observations made by the writer at Oaxaca, Mexico, in 1899, reveal 

 the perpetuation of simple methods of lighting from the earlier times. 

 Here the bread market extends into the night, and women bread 

 sellers sit along the street with baskets of their product before them. 

 The lights are httle tin lanterns with small panes of glass, candles 

 set up on rings of bread, and splints of ococote, fat pine, laid on a 

 stone, brick, or tile often set up on a tripod made of sticks. Vendors 

 of fat pine sit in the market and split the wood with a large knife or 

 machete. A small bundle is sold for 1 cent. Amole, yucca-root soap, 

 and firewood are dealt in by poor and distressed persons. 



WEST INDIES 



The natives of Guanihani were in the habit of using artificial 

 illumination. Columbus from the deck of his caravel, first reported 

 this. Herrera says: "It appeared like a candle that went up and 

 down, and Don Christopher did not doubt that it was a true light 

 and that it was on land; and so it proved, as it came from people 

 passing with lights from one cottage to another."^' 



In the island of Cuba Columbus' men met many persons, each 

 carrying a fire brand in his hand to fight fire and perfume themselves 

 with some herbs and to roast their roots, that being their principal 

 food; and the fire was easily kindled because they had a sort of 

 wood which if they worked one piece against another, as if they 

 were boring a hole, took fire.^* 



In Porto Rico the Carib Indians used the wood of tabanuco, a 

 resinous palm, for torches. 



De Rochfort gives toule as the Carib word for candle, and says 

 "it is of a sandal which yields a gum."^° 



Dr. J. Walter Fewkes brought torches of resin folded in palm 

 spathe from Porto Rico. These torches suggest those of the East 

 Indies, but those mentioned by De Rochfort in 1665 were not 

 introduced from that area (pi. 33, fig 5). 



CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA 



Of the Isthmians it is said: "At night as a fight for their dwell- 

 ings they use torches made from palm and dipped in oil and bees- 

 wax."®^ Humboldt mentions the use of copal torches by the natives 



" B. Sahagun, London, 1830, p. 121. 



M Dec. 1, Book 1, chap. 12. 



M Herrera. History of America (Stevens), London, 1725, vol. 1, p. 56. 



•» Hist. Nat. et Moral des lies Antilles d' Amerique. Rotterdam. 1665. 



" H. H. Bancroft. Wild Tribes, vol. 1, p. 765. 



