ART. 14 FIRE-MAKIN"G APPARATUS HOUGH 23 



The Cherokees used for a drill the stalk of a composite plant 

 (Senecio) and twirled it on a piece of wood. The art has long been 

 out of common use, but they employed the wooden drill to make fire for 

 the Green Corn Dance into the present century, though flint and steel 

 was then in vogue. Sometimes they passed the bow over the drill. 

 The tinder was of a fungus or dried moss. James Mooney collected 

 this information from some of the older men of the tribe in North 

 Carolina, who have retained the ancient customs and traditions, which 

 the part of the tribe removed to the West has entirely lost. 



The Creeks (Muskogean stock) had a regularly authorized fire 

 maker who early in the morning made fire for the Green Corn Dance. 

 The apparatus that he made use of was four sticks placed end to end 

 to form a square cross. This was oriented, and at the junction of 

 the sticks new fire was made by friction. ^^ 



The Choctaws (also Muskogean) of Mississippi, M. F. Berry writes, 

 make fire in the following way: One stick of dry wood that has a 

 hole in it, with a smaller hole at the bottom going through, is placed 

 between the feet. Another piece made round and about 3 feet long 

 is made to revolve rapidly back and forth between the hands in the 

 hole, and the fire drops through the small hole below. When new 

 fire was wanted for the Green Corn Dance or other purposes three 

 men would place themselves so that each in turn could keep the stick 

 revolving without a stop until fire would drop down through the hole, 

 which was nursed with dry material into a flame. 



This form of the fire hearth is not represented in the collections of 

 the Museum; the only other description of a process closely like it 

 was given by Thomas C. Battey, who observed it among the Kiowas. 

 It was shown him at that time as a revival of the ancient method. 

 The pierced fire hearth is somewhat impracticable, except in the Malay 

 sawing method. In the rotary drill the small hole would come over 

 the axis of least friction and heat. Unless provision was made for 

 the dust to fall freely underneath by a double cone perforation worked 

 from both sides the dust is likely to become obstructed and smother 

 the fire. It will be seen, too, that it departs very much from the 

 simplicity of the usual fire drill in the fact that a hole must be made 

 through the piece of wood, a matter of some difficulty before the 

 introduction of iron awls. 



The Seminoles of Florida, the most southern Muskoki, have neglected 

 the art of fire making by simple friction, unless at the starting of the 

 sacred fire for the Green Corn Dance, says Clay MacCauley.^^ A 

 fire is now kindled either by the common matches, ma-tci, or by steel 

 and flint. 



'« Benjamin Hawkins' Sketch of the Creek Country, 1798-99, pp. 68-72, cited in Pickett's History of 

 Alabama, vol. 1, p. 108. 

 " Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology for 1883-84, p. 518. 



