22 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.73 



Professor Gabb made quite a collection from Talamanca, but has not 

 left any notes on these remarkable people, who are well worthy of 

 the careful study of ethnologists. 



A curious modification of this central-hole plan is figured and 

 described in Oviedo, folio 90, as occurring in Hispaniola — that is, the 

 West Indies, Haiti, San Domingo, etc. He says that "two dry, light 

 sticks of brown wood were tied firmly together, and the point of the 

 drill of a particular hardwood was inserted between the two and then 

 worked." H. Ling Roth " thinks that if one can judge from the illus- 

 tration (which is a miserable one) in Benzoni's work, the natives of 

 Nicaragua also used three sticks in making fire. Benzoni, how- 

 ever, says : '^ 



All over India they light fire with two pieces of wood; although they had a 

 great deal of wax, they knew no use for it, and produced light from pieces of 

 wild pine wood. 



From Oviedo's description I am inclined to believe that the dust 

 in which the fire starts was allowed to fall below on tinder placed 

 beneath the hearth. (PL 2, fig. 2.) 



The drill was sufficient for its time for the reason that there was at 

 that period rarely necessity for generating fire; the art of fire preser- 

 vation was at its height. 



The Cherokees, the most southerly of the Iroquois, James Mooney 

 writes, kept fire buried in the mounds upon which the council houses 

 were built, so that if the house was destroyed by enemies the fire would 

 remain there for a year or so. The Cherokees use the simple rotation 

 apparatus, and, as far as Mr. Mooney can ascertain, never used the 

 the pump drill. They have a tradition that fire originally came out 

 of an old hollow sycamore tree {Platanus occidentalis) . 



Capt. John Smith tells how the Indians of Virginia made fire. 

 He says: 



Their fire they kindled presently by chafing a dry pointed sticke in a hole of 

 a little square piece of wood, that firing itselfe, will so fire mosse, leaves, or anie 

 such like drie thing that will quickly burn.^^ 



Writing in the first quarter of the next century, Beverley says: 



They rubbed Fire out of particular sorts of Wood (as the Ancients did out of 

 the Ivy and Baj's) by turning the end of a Piece that is soft and dry, like a Spin- 

 dle on its Inke, by which it heats and at length burns; to this they put some- 

 times also rotten Wood and dry leaves to hasten the Work." 



Loskiel says of the Delawares: 



Formerly they kindled fire by turning or twirling a dry stick with great swift- 

 ness on a dry board, using both hands. '^ 



"The Aborigines of Hispaniola, Journ. Anthrop. Inst., Ot. Britain and Ireland, vol. 16, p. 282. 



» History of the New World, Hakluyt Society, vol. 21, p. 151. 



I'The Natural Inhabitants of Virginia. English Scholars Library, No. 16, p. 68. 



"History of Virginia, 1722, pp. 197, 198. 



"History of the Mission of the United Brethren, p. 54. London, 1794. 



