AKT. 14 FERE-MAKING APPARATUS HOUGH 9 



ETHNOGRAPHY OF FIRE-MAKING APPARATUS 



I. FIRE MAKING BY EECIPROCATING MOTION 



1. Simple two-stick apparatus. — This method may be said to have 

 a world-wide distribution and to have had no narrow range in time. 

 It is a very interesting study to observe the many different practices 

 that have been superadded to the simple task of twirling two sticks 

 with the design of creating fire. It is also instructive to note how 

 fixed have become tribal characters in so small a thing as the shap- 

 ing of the elements of the fire drill. It has well been said by Doctor 

 Schweinf urth that : 



A people, as long as they are on the lowest step of their development, are far 

 better characterized by their industrial products than they are either by their 

 habits, which may be purely local, or by their own representations, which (rendered 

 in their rude and unformed language) are often incorrectly interpreted by our- 

 selves. If we possessed more of these tokens we should be in a position to com- 

 prehend better than we do the primitive condition of many a nation that has 

 now reached a high degree of culture,* 



This fact holds good with reference to tribes in a higher plane 

 than the learned writer included in this statement, in this way: 

 There are many little things that have not been subject to the modi- 

 fication of time, intercourse, or environment, but coexist with an art. 

 To particularize: Prof. E. S. Morse has shosvn the value of the sim- 

 ple act of releasing an arrow from a bowstring as a classifier. Close 

 attention to the minor acts and arts will reveal much more than the 

 nice measurements of man's practically unmodified skeleton. 



Differences that have become functional in the arts have come 

 down from an early period; when they can be found they are of the 

 greatest value as aids in ethnology. 



The ethnography of the simple fire drill is studied geographically, 

 beginning in North America with the most northerly tribes that use 

 it, and ranging from north to south in the different sections of the 

 country, among the tribes from which there are specimens in the 

 Museum. Other countries are examined from west to east. 



The Sitkan fire-drill spindle is unusually long and thick. (Fig. 1.) 

 Both hearth and drills are of the Thuja gigantea, a tree that enters 

 so largely into the life of the Indians along this coast. The wood 

 grinds off very well with much friction; at ordinary speed there is 

 soon a small heap of powder at the bottom of the fire slot. The lat- 

 ter is deeply cut in from the side nearly to the center of the fire hole. 

 The whole hearth has been charred at the fire. This repels moisture, 

 and also renders it easier to ignite the wood, charring being a process 

 somewhat analogous to the decay of wood by rotting. If kept care- 

 fully in a dry place, this apparatus was perfectly adequate for the 



' The Heart of Africa. New York, 1874, vol. 1, p. 257. 

 86374—28 2 



