FIRE-MAKING APPARATUS. 547 



and, despite the assurances and belief of tbc Iroquois, is not very ancient, 

 but was perhaps suggested by the white man. Indeed, Pere Lafitau, 

 that keen and careful observer, in his "Moeurs des Sauvages Ameri- 

 quains," written in 1724, on page 242, gives a description of Indian fire- 

 making that includes the Iroquois. He says: 



The Hnrous, tlio Iroquois, aud the other peoples of North America do not make 

 fire from the veius of liint, but rub two pieces of wood oue against the other. 



Then follows a description of fire-making, taken probably from the 

 Iroquois, that is as good an account of the Indian ap{)aratus and the 

 way of working it as exists in the literature of the subject. 



The drill was sufficient for its time for the reason that there was at 

 that period rarely necessity for generating fire; the art of fire preser- 

 vation was at its height. 



The Cherokees, the most southerly of the Iroquois, Mr. James Mooney 

 states, kept fire buried in the mounds upon which the council houses 

 were built, so that if the house was destroyed by enemies the fire 

 would remain there for a year or so. The Cherokees use the simple 

 rotation apparatus, and, as far as Mr. Mooney can ascertain, never used 

 the pump-drill. They have a tradition that tire originally came out of 

 an old hollow sycamore tree {Platanus occidenfalis). 



Capt. John Smith tells how the Indians of Virginia made fire. He 

 says : 



Their fire they kindled presently by chafing a dry pointed sticks in a hole of a little 

 square piece of wood, that firing itselfe, will so fire mosse, leaves, or anie such like drie 

 thing that will quickly burn.* 



Writing in the first quarter of the next century, Beverley says: 

 They rubbed Fire out of i)articular sorts of Wood (as the Ancients did out of the 

 Ivy and Bays) by taming the end of a Piece that is soft and dry, like a Spindle on 

 its Inke, by which it heats and at length barns ; to this they put sometimes also rotten 

 Wood aud dry leaves to hasten the Work, t 



Loskiel says of the Delawares: 



Formerly they kindled fire by turning or twirling a dry stick, with great swiftness 

 on a dry board, using both hands. t 



The Cherokees used for a drill the stalk of a composite plant 

 (senecio), aud twirled it on a piece of wood. The art has long been out 

 of common use, but they employed the wooden drill to make fire for the 

 Green Corn Dance into the present century, though flint and steel was 

 then in vogue. Sometimes they passed the bow over drill. The tinder 

 was of a fungus or dried moss. Mr. James Mooney collected this in- 

 formation from some of the older men of the tribe in North Carolina, 

 who have retained the ancient customs and traditions, which the part 

 of the tribe removed to the West has entirely lost. 



The Creeks (Muskogean stock) had a regularly authorized fire-maker, 

 who early in the morning made fire for the Green Corn Dance. The 



* Smith. — The Natural Inhabitants of Virginia. English Scholars' Library. No. 1(5, 

 p. 08. 



t Beverley.— History of Virginia. 1722. 197,198. 



t Loskiel,— History of the Mission of the Uuifced Brethren, Loudou, 1794. p. 54. 



