54 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 73 



brown dust ignites. This is allowed to glow and if it is required to 

 be transferred to dry leaves or chips of wood it is done by means of 

 a tinder made of frayed or worn tap a cloth. 



The groove (fig. 39a) is the most characteristic feature of this 

 apparatus, there being apparently no definite form of implements for 

 this purpose. Fire is made on any billet of dry wood that is avail- 

 able. It is not necessary to cut a slot, or even a groove; the hard- 

 wood rubber will form one, so that there is no more need of apparatus 

 than among the Navahos, where two bits of yucca stalk collected 

 near by form the fire tools. 



That making fire by this way is difficult to those inexperienced in 

 it is not strange. Mr. Darwin found it quite so, but at last suc- 

 ceeded. The Samoan gets fire in 40 seconds, and so great is the 

 friction and the wood so Well adapted that Mr. Austin, before quoted, 

 says it sometimes actually bursts into flame. 



The Australians in some parts use a method very much like the 

 one described. They rub a knife of wood along *^ a groove made in 

 another stick previously filled with tinder.'*^ 



Fire thong. — While there is no apparent connection between the 

 fire drill and the fire saw, plow, and thong, there is an approximation 

 in method of operation among the three latter — that is, the fire saw 

 and thong are in close relationship, the plow is related but stands 

 farther away, while the drill is unrelated. 



Henry Balfour has most successfully monographed the fire thong.*^ 

 The method has been found in use in southeastern Asia and the Asiatic 

 islands; in New Guinea; West Africa, and western Europe. 



At first sight it would seem necessary to limit the fire thong method 

 to the area of the distribution of the rattan, whose strong texture 

 admits of the hard usage required in making fire. This is generally 

 the case, as it is difficult in other parts of the world to supply the 

 thong material. Some thongs of bark, however, or strips of flexible 

 bamboo, are used in areas where the rattan does not occur. 



Matthew W. Stirling, on his expedition to Central New Guinea in 

 conjunction with the Dutch Government, found the fire thong in use 

 among the Pygmies and the fringing Pygmy-Papuan tribes. Curi- 

 ously enough he found the method employed in sawing down trees. 

 This is quite suggestive of a way by which the fire thong may have 

 been discovered. 



The Battaks of the island of Palawan in the Philippines use the 

 thong fire kindler. The thong of rattan is wound into a wristlet and 

 worn till needed. The stick is cleft and held open by a bit of stone. 

 M. W. Stirling brought from the hitherto unvisited Pygmies of New 



« This Is perhaps across the groove. 



<' R. Brough Smyth. The Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. 394. London, 1878. 



** Frictional fire making with a flexible sawing thong. Joum. Roy. Anthrop. Inst., vol. 44, January- 

 June, 1914, pp. 32-64. 



