290 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
is made to work against the split surface of a stick of spruce 18 inches 
long, along the middle of which is cut a gash, to give the drill a start. 
Three equidistant circular pits, charred and blackened, were bored out 
by the tip of the drill, which developed heat enough to set fire to the 
sawdust produced. Tinder was probably used to catch and hold the 
fire. 
Most authors who have treated of the Eskimo have described an 
instrument of this sort in use either in former times or at the present 
day. 
Among most Eskimo, however, a bow is used to work the drill. The 
only exceptions to this rule appears to have been the ancient Greenland- 
ers and the people of Hudson Bay (see the passages from Hakluyt, 
Crantz, and Ellis, just quoted.) Chamisso, however,’ speaks of seeing 
the Aleutians at Unalaska produce fire by means of a stick worked by 
a string making two turns about the stick and held and drawn with 
both hands, with the upper end of the stick turning in a piece of wood 
held in the mouth. Whena piece of fir was turned against another piece 
of the same wood fire was often produced ina few seconds. This passage 
appears to have escaped the usually keen observation of Mr. W. H. 
Dall, who, speaking of the ancient Aleutians, says: ‘ The ‘fiddle-bow 
drill’ was an instrument largely used in their carving and working bone 
and ivory; but for obtaining fire but two pieces of quarz were struck 
together,” ete.’ 
1Bessels, Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 867, speaks of a fire drill used at Smith Sound with a bow and 
a mouthpiece of ivory. 
A Greenlander; seen by John Davis, in 1586, ‘‘ beganne to kindle a fire, in his manner: he took a piece 
of a boord, wherein was a hole halfe thorow: into that he puts the end of a rofid sticke like unto a 
bedstaffe, wetting the end thereof in traine, and in fashion of a turner, with a piece of lether, by his 
violent motion doth very speedily produce fire.".—Hakluyt'’s Voyages, ete. (1589), p. 782. 
“They take a short Block of dry Fir Tree, upon which they rub another Piece of hard Wood, till by the 
continued Motion the Fir catches Fire.""—Egede, Greenland, p. 137. 
“Tf their fire goes out, they can kindle it again by turning round a stick very quick with a string 
through a hole in a piece of wood.”—Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 145. 
Lyon (Journal, p. 210) says that at Iglulik they were able to procure “fire by the friction of a pin of 
wood in the hole of another piece and pressed down like a drill from above.”’. This was worked with a 
bow and willow catkins were used for tinder. A man informed them that ‘he had learned it from his 
father rather for amusement than for utility; the two lumps of iron pyrites certainly answering the 
purpose a great deal better.” ‘ 
“They have a very dextrous Method of kindling Fire; in order to which, they prepare two small 
Pieces of dry Wood, which having made flat, they next make a small Hole in each, and having fitted into 
these Holes a little cylindrical Piece of Wood, to which a Thong is fastened, they whirl it about thereby 
with such a Velocity, that by rubbing the Pieces of Wood one against the other, this Motion soon sets 
them on fire.”—Ellis, Voyage to Hudsons Bay, p. 234. 
A picture of the process is given opposite page 132, in which a man holds the socket, while a woman 
works the thong (western shore of Hudson Bay, near Chesterfield Inlet). 
Rae also mentions a similar drill used in the same region in 1847 (Narrative, p. 187); and there isa 
specimen in the National Museum, collected by MacFarlane, and said to be the kind ‘tin use until 
lately” in the Mackenzie and Anderson region. : 
Dall figures a fire drill with bow and mouthpiece formerly in use at Norton Sound (Alaska, p. 142); 
and Hooper (Tents, ete., p. 187) describes a similar drill at Plover Bay. 
From Nordenskiéld’s account (Vega, vol. 2, p. 121) the fire drill seems to be still generally ased by the 
natives at the Vega’s winter quarters. He says that the women appeared more accustomed to the use 
of the drill than the men, and that a little oil was put on the end of the drill. 
2 Kotzebue's Voyage, vol. 3, p. 260. 
3Contribution to N. A. Ethnology, vol. 1, p. 82. 
