THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



249 



Primitive Fire Production. 



By William W. Thorpe. 



IT is commonly accepted by students 

 of ethnography that the production 

 and use of fire, now so essential to 

 us, was a comparatively late discovery 

 of primitive man, and that our ancestors 

 were for a very long time content to 

 eat their food uncooked. How man 

 first discovered fire is a subject for 

 conjecture. According to classic my- 

 thology, Prometheus stole fire from 

 Jupiter and conveyed it surreptitiously 

 to earth concealed in a hollow tube. 

 Less romantic and fanciful views are 

 that the discovery was made by 

 observing the result of a lightning 

 stroke, the heat produced by the rubbing 

 of trees in contact during a gale, or 

 the sparks emitted by striking two 

 hard stones together. In countries 

 where active volcanoes exist fire would 

 always be available, but in other parts 

 of the globe man must have had other 

 natural or artificial indications to 

 guide him to its discovery. It is a 

 curious fact that the Andaman Islanders 

 although possessing fire when first 

 brought into contact with civilised 

 man, were no longer acquainted with 

 the means of producing it, and the 

 onus of keeping it alight devolved upon 

 the women-folk, who in truth, had to 

 " keep the home fires burning." 



All methods of producing fire prac- 

 tised by primitive races are based on 

 friction. The three principal fire -pro- 

 ducing implements are the " drill," the 

 "plough" and the "crosscut." The 

 first named consists of two sticks, 

 one placed horizontally on the ground 

 and held in position by the feet of the 

 operator, or the hands of an assistant ; 

 while another upright stick is rapidly 

 twirled between the palms of the 

 hands, working in a slight depression 

 previously made in the horizontal one. 

 A lateral slit, allows the surplus of 

 triturated wood to fall away. As the 

 speed is increased the wood begins to 

 char, first smoke and then a spark 

 appears ; this is carefully nursed, 

 blown upon, and tinder added to the 

 spot until fire results. The Amter has 



Australian aboriginal producing Are by 

 •' twirling." 



[After y. W. Thomas. 



frequently tried this method without 

 result ; the hands, in bearing on the 

 twirling stick work down and the 

 difficult}^ seems to be in recovering 

 the top without losing speed of ro- 

 tation. Our aboriginals used this 

 method, and in Cape York the working 

 ends are kept dry in a double sheath 

 often decorated with red Abrus seeds. 

 The Eskimo produce fire by means 

 of a rotary bow drill, the upper end of 

 the spindle revolving in a bearing 

 gripped by the teeth. 



The " plough " outfit consists of a 

 tongue shaped stick rubbed along a 

 groove in a softer piece of timber. 

 This is the method adopted by the 

 Polynesians. 



The " cross-cut " method, as its 

 name applies, consisted in rubbing one 

 piece of Avood across another. L^sually 

 the nether timber is cleft and tinder 

 is placed in the gap. The aborigines 

 of Central Australia used a flat spear- 

 thrower on edge across a soft-wood 

 shield. A variation in this method is 

 followed in New Guinea, where a 



