AKT. 14 



FIRE-MAKING APPARATUS HOUGH 



51 



producer and hardly a practical tool for 

 the purpose. 



How long the Iroquois have had the 

 fire drill is conjectural, but observers as 

 early as 1724 do not mention its use, 

 speaking only of the simple two-stick 

 drill. 



II. FIRE MAKING BT SAWING 



Prof. Alfred Russell Wallace in his 

 work entitled ''The Malay Archipelago," 

 (p. 332) has noted the method by sawing 

 two pieces of bamboo; a sharp-edge piece 

 like a knife is rubbed across a convex 

 piece in which a notch is cut, nearly 

 severing the bamboo (fig. 38) ; after saw- 

 ing across for awhile the bamboo is 

 pierced, and the heated particles fall below 

 and ignite. The Ternate Malays and the 

 Tungaras of British North Borneo ^° have 

 improved upon this by striking a piece of 

 china with tinder held with it against the 

 outside of a piece of bamboo, the siliceous 

 coating of the latter yielding a spark like 

 flint. Both of the methods mentioned 

 are in use at different points in the area 

 affected by Malay influence. 



The Chittagong hill tribes, on the east- 

 ern frontier of British India, use sand on 

 the sawing knife to increase the friction.*' 



The Karens of Burma, Dr. R. M. Luther 

 informs the writer, hollow out a branch of 

 the Dipterocarpus tree like the lower piece 

 of bamboo spoken of, cut a transverse 

 notch, and saw across in it with a rubber 

 of ironwood. The wood fibers ground oft' 

 form the tinder; the coal is wrapped up in 

 a drj" leaf and swung around the head till 

 it blazes. It takes only two or three 

 minutes to get a blaze this way. 



Bearing upon the origin of this method 

 of sawing in these localities, nature is 



«• D. D. Daly. 

 « Capt. T. H. 

 cutta, 1869. 



Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc, p. 10, 1888. 

 Lewis. Hill tribes of Chittagong, p. 83. 



Cal- 



FiG. 37.— Lower piece and spindlk 



OF FIRE-MAKING SET. CAT. NO. 



72514, U. S.N. M. Eskimo of 

 KoDiAK Island, Alaska. Col- 

 lected BY W. J. Fisher 



