24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 73 



Thus it is seen that wherever in the earlier period of the exploration 

 in this country the observation has been made, the Indian, almost 

 with out exception, was found to be using the friction apparatus con- 

 sisting of two sticks of wood. Some tribes had improved on the 

 working of the invention, while a very few others had perhaps arrived 

 at the use of the higher invention of the flint and pyrites. 



Returning to the tribes of the wide central plains of our country, 

 we find that the flint and steel soon displaced the fire sticks, except 

 for religious purposes. The Mandans, of the great Siouan stock, 

 were using flint and steel at the time of Mr. Catlin's visit in 1832.^^ 



There seems to be a great misapprehension among some of the 

 writers on ethnology as to the general use of the bow drill among the 

 Indians. In mentioning that the Sioux use the bow drill, Schoolcraft 

 is quoted as authority. As a matter of fact the reference is to a 

 "made-up" figure of a bow-drill set, marked "Dacota." On the 

 same plate there is a representation of an Iroquois pump drill that 

 is obviously wrong. The lower part of the plate is taken up by a 

 picture of an Indian woman (presumably Californian) pounding 

 acorns in a mortar. To complete the absurdity the whole plate is 

 entitled "Methods of obtaining fire by percussion," and is placed in 

 the text of a questionnaire on the Californian Indians, opposite a 

 description of the Californian way of making fire by twirling two 

 sticks.'^ 



Mr. Schoolcraft is not to blame for this state of affairs. In those 

 days illustrations were not ethnological; they were "padding" gotten 

 up by the artist. Nowhere in his great work does Mr. Schoolcraft 

 describe either the Dakota or Iroquois drill. Among the northern 

 Indians in central and northern Canada, however, the bow is used. 



Sir Daniel Wilson, in his work on Prehistoric Man, notes that the 

 Red Indians of Canada use the drill bow. In August, 1888, at the 

 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 at Toronto, he gave an account of the facility with which these 

 Indians make fire. He said that at Nipissing, on the north shore of 

 Lake Superior, while he was traveling in a pouring rain, and not 

 having the means wherewith to light a fire, an Indian volunteered to 

 light one. He searched around for a pine knot and for tinder, rub- 

 bed up the soft inner bark of the birch between the hands, got a 

 stick from a sheltered place, made a socket in the knot and another 

 piece of wood for a rest for the drill, tied a thong to a piece of a 

 branch for a bow. He put the tinder in the hole and rested his 

 breast on the drill and revolved it with the bow and quickly 

 made fire. 



'• The George Catlin Indian Gallery. Smithsonian Report for 1885, vol. 2, p. 456. 

 >• Indian Tribes, vol. 3, pi. 28. 1851-1860. 



