574 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1907. 
Bhamo to Rangoon. To the northeast they extend some distance 
across the Chinese frontier, among the eastern Kachins and peoples 
of mixed Kachin blood. On the eastern side of Burma they are 
found in both the northern and southern Shan states. 
French Indo-China.—A piston (fig. 25 on pl. rv) in the Edinburgh 
Museum was obtained from the Khas (or Kumuks), an aboriginal 
hill tribe of low stature, inhabiting the country north of Luang 
Prabang, which lies on the Mekong River in lat. 20° N. It is entirely 
of horn; the cylinder is carved in an ornamental molding at either 
end. The piston has a knobbed head coated, apparently, with some 
kind of composition. A bag of cloth serves as a tinder pouch (fig. 
25a). / 
Farther to the southeast the implement is again met with among 
the Mois, a people of very low culture inhabiting the table lands and 
mountains between the Mekong River and the coast of Annam, from 
the frontier of Yunnan to Cochin China. They differ racially from 
the Annamese and Thai, and are said by Deniker® to belong prob- 
ably to the “ Indonesian ” stock. A. Gautier describes” the instru- 
ment as having a cylinder of hard wood, with a bore of 7 to 8 em. in 
depth, and 7 to 8 mm. in diameter. The piston, also of wood, has a 
large, rounded knob, and is cupped at the lower end for the tinder in 
the usual way. The tinder (amadou) is kept in a hard fruit shell 
hollowed out. The native moistens the end of the piston in his mouth, 
so as to lubricate it, and also to make the small piece of tinder adhere 
to the cupped hollow. Apparently the instrument is in constant use 
amongst the Mois. 
Malay Peninsula—John Cameron frequently saw the fire piston in 
use among the Malays of the Straits, prior to 1865. He writes: ¢ 
There is one peculiarity which I will mention, as it might, I think, be capable 
of improved application at home; it is the method adopted by some of obtain- 
ing fire. It is true that this is not the usual method, nor do I remember to 
have seen it alluded to by any other writer; I have witnessed it, nevertheless, 
repeatedly availed of by the Malays of the Straits; and in some of the islands 
to the eastward of Java, where I first saw it, it is in constant use. A small 
piece of horn or hard wood about 3 or 4 inches long and three-quarters of an 
inch in diameter is carefully bored through the center for three-fourths of its 
length, with a hole about a quarter of an inch in diameter. ‘To fit this, a sort 
of ramrod or piston of hard wood is made, loose all along, but padded with 
thread or cotton at the point, so as to be as nearly air-tight as possible, when 
placed into the hole of the little cylinder. * * * When used, the cylinder is 
held firmly in the fist of the left hand; a small piece of tinder, generally dried 
fungus, is placed in a cavity on the point of the piston, which is then just en- 
tered into the mouth of the bore; with a sudden stroke of the right hand the 
“Races of Man, p. 392. 
o“Wtude sur les Mois,” Bull. de la Société de Géographie Commerciale du 
Havre, 1902, pp. 95 and 177. 
¢ Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India, 1865, p. 186. 
