3i8 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



open by inserting a piece of wood or a stone in the cleft, 

 stuffing some tinder into the narrow part of the sht and 

 then drawing rapidly a strip of rattan to and fro across 

 this spot till a spark ignites the tinder. Poch found it 

 among the Poum, dwelling in the mountains inland from 

 the Kai {Geog. Jul. xxx, 1907, p. 612, and Mitt. Anth. Ges. 

 in Wien, xxxvii. 1907, p. 59, fig. 2, 3). Precisely the 

 same method was described by the Rev. Dr. W. G. Lawes 

 who found it among the Koiari of Tabure on Mt. Wari- 

 rata [Proc. R. Geog. Soc. v, 1883, p. 357)- Finsch 

 collected the apparatus from the same people (Ann. 

 des K.K. natnrhist. Hofmns. in Wien, ill, 1888, p. 323 ; 

 Leo Frobenius, The Childhood of Man, 1909, fig. 313, 

 but Frobenius is mistaken in representing the rattan 

 as going twice round the stick). Dr. H. 0. Forbes had 

 found it at Ubumkara on the Naoro, also in the Central 

 Division (P.R.G.S. xii. 1890, p. 562). Mr. C. A. W. 

 Monckton noticed it in 1906 among the Kambisa tribe, 

 in the valley of the Chirima, Mt. Albert Edward (Ann. 

 Rep. Brit. New Guinea, 1907). Poch suggests that N. 

 von Miklucho-Maclay was wrong in thinking that the 

 strip was rubbed in the split of a stick (I.e. p. 61) ; 

 this is the earUest Papuan record (1872). 



From the above account it is possible that the split 

 stick and rattan strip method of fire-making may be a 

 criterion of Negrito culture, but it should be noted that the 

 stick is not reported as split among the Semang, and that 

 the unsplit stick is found among the Sakai and the Kayans 

 and Kenyahs of Sarawak who are not Negritos. Also the 

 split stick is found at several spots in the mountainous 

 interior of the south-east peninsula of New Guinea where 

 Negrito influence has not yet been recorded, but Mr. 

 WilHamson's observations are very suggestive in this 

 respect. Poch (I.e. p. 62) points out that this method is 

 nearest akin to " fire-sawing with bamboo, both in 

 principle and distribution," of which he gives details. A 



