FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTUKE 207 



thus: "After dark the room was lit by means of chips of pitch pine 

 burnt on a flat stone, though the usual butter lamps were not want- 

 ing."" 



POLYNESIA 



That very useful tree called the candlenut tree, Aleurites toiloha 

 furnishes material for torches generally in Polynesia, but other vege- 

 tal substances are also used. Walpole, speaking of the Tahitians, 



says : 



"The doodoe nuts (Aleurita triloba) are strung on palm stalks and 



stuck upright; the top one is lighted, and as soon as burnt is knocked 

 off as the next catches. These give a poor light and require atten- 

 tion. But they are very plentiful."^® 



In the Society Islands candletree nuts are slightly baked, the shells 

 removed and the kernels strung on rushes. Several strings are 

 wrapped in the leaf of the. screw pine, forming a good torch for fish- 

 ing. Ellis states that in Hawaii four or five strings of the nuts are 

 wTapped in pandanus leaves, keeping them together and making a 

 more brilliant light.*' 



In the Marquesas the burning of the nuts gave a rude approxima- 

 tion to the passage of periods of time. 



EAST INDIES 



Torches made of dammar gum are generally used within the range 

 of this tree, and the gum is an important article of commerce. Al- 

 fred Eussell Wallace says that torches of dammar wrapped in the 

 leaves of the fan-leafed palm are sold in the Ternate market. The 

 ^um was collected at Langundi.*' 



A simpler torch in the National Museum from Singapore consists 

 of palm leaves smeared with dammar resin and rolled into a cylin- 

 drical shape. They are used when traveling at night by the Malays 

 of the Peninsula. The torch is said to give a pretty good light and 

 the smoke has an aromatic odor (pi. 33, fig. 8). Torches of Cambo- 

 dia and the Malabar coast are described as made of palm leaves tied 

 together and steeped in resin. ^^ Torches which burn a short time are 

 frequently made by roughly bunching a palm leaf and allowing it to 

 dry before using. 



The Siamese torch is a club-shaped mass of dammar resin 16 inches 

 long, bound up in palm leaf and secured with half hitches of rattan. 

 The lower end is formed for holding in the hand or for socketing in 

 a torch holder (pi. 33, figs 3, 7). From Mindanao comes a dammar 

 torch consisting of a spindle-form mass of resin 40 inches long enclosed 

 in palm leaf and skillfully bound with rattan worked in half hitches 



'• Journey Through Mongolia and Tibet. Washington, 1894, p. 341. 



"Frederick Walpole. Four Years in the Pacific, vol. 2, London, 1849, p. 312. 



"Polynesia, vol. 4, London, 1859, p. 375. 



"Malay Archipelago, New York, 1860, pp. 346-349. 



*> Popular Science Monthly, January, 1887, p. 316. 



