AfiT. 14 FIRE-MAKING APPAEATUS — HOUGH 25 



It is perhaps true that some of the Dakotas did use the bow at 

 times, but it is not correct to place it as the customary tool of the 

 whole stock. On the contrary, there is evidence that they used 

 the simple means. Dr. J. Owen Dorsey writes: 



I was told in 1879 by the late Joseph La Fleche, that the Omahas, prior to the 

 advent of the white men, made fire by using pieces of the "du-^-du-d-hi," a 

 grass (?) that grows in the Sand Hill region of Nebraska, near the sources of the 

 Elkhorn River. One piece was placed horizontally on the ground, and a slight 

 notch was cut at one end, wherein a few grains of sand were put. The other 

 stick was held between the palms of the hands, with one end in the notch of the 

 horizontal stick, and then rolled first in one direction then in the other till fire 

 was produced. A fresh notch was made in the first stick whenever the old one 

 became useless, and so on until it became necessary to procure a new stick. 



In the Green Corn Dance of the Minitaries, another Siouan tribe, 

 the "corn is boiled on the fire, which is then put out by removing it 

 with the ashes and burying them. New fire is made by desperate 

 and painful exertion, by three men seated on the ground facing each 

 other and violently drilling the end of a stick into a hard block of 

 wood by rolling it between the hands, each one catching it in turn 

 from the others without allowing the motion to stop until smoke, 

 and at last a spark of fire is seen and caught in a piece of spunk, 

 when there is great rejoicing in the crowd." ^'^ The desperate exer- 

 tion was not necessary, except in imitation of the Zuni fashion of 

 wetting the drill to create sacred fire. 



It will be seen from these references given that the Sioux used the 

 customary Indian method. Later, they may have used the bow to 

 expedite the drill when the wood was intractable. The bow may 

 have been borrowed from more northern tribes, the Algonquians are 

 said to used it; ^^ Thomas C. Battey says that the Sac-Fox Indians 

 (Algonquian stock) used a soft-wood drill and a hard-wood hearth. 

 "The drill was worked by a bow and the fire caught on the end of 

 the drill and touched to tinder." 



Throughout South America the art of fire making with two sticks 

 of wood is found to be as thoroughly diffused as it is in North 

 America. Many of the tribes still use it; we may say that in all 

 tribes the use of flint and steel was preceded by that of the sticks 

 of wood. 



From Carib-Arawak tribes of British Guiana come simple jungle- 

 fire drills consisting of peeled and dressed rods of soft-yellow wood. 

 A bit of the black bark is left at the upper end of the drill as an 

 ornament. The hearth has a fire pit near the end or in the smaller 

 hearths near the middle. (PI. 2, figs. 1, la, Cat. No. 210445, British 

 Guiana, coll. by J. J. Quelch, received from the Field Museum of 



M Smithsonian Report, vol. 2, p. 315, 1885. 

 " Sir Daniel Wilson. Prehistoric Man, vol. 2, p. 375. 

 86374—28 4 



